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CARLA  WENCKEBACH 


CARLA 
WENCKEBACH 

Pioneer 

BY 
MARGARETHE  MULLER 


Hochstes  Oliick  der  Erdenkind&r 
1st  wwr  die  Personlichkeit. 

GOETHE 


GINN  AND  COMPANY 

BOSTON  AND  LONDON 

Publishers 
1913 


ENTERED  AT  STATIONERS**  HALL 

COPYRIGHT,  1908,  BY  MARGARETHE  MULLEB 

ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVED 


PUBLISHED  SEPTEMBER,  1908 


D.  B.  UPDIKE,  THE  MEIKRYMOUNT  PRESS,  BOSTON 


TO  HER  PUPILS 
AND  MINE 


256352 


FOREWORD 

MY  first  and  foremost  reason  for  writing  this 
biographical  sketch  has  been  an  ardent 
desire  to  share  a  precious  possession, — a  possession 
that  has  come  to  me  through  intimate  knowledge 
and  deep  appreciation  of  a  very  unusual,  very  vital 
humanbeing.The  joyof  the  human  mind  in  distinct 
personality,  that  "highest  bliss  of  earth-bom  be- 
ings," as  Goethe  calls  it,  is  undying;  and  if  through 
what  I  recount  of  Carla  Wenckebach  I  succeed  in 
evoking  in  my  readers  even  a  passing  gleam  of  the 
glad  delight  I  myself  experience  in  contemplating 
her,  that  gleam  will  be  my  reward. 

A  secondary  incentive  for  writing  these  memoirs 
has  been  the  wish  to  furnish  an  historic  document 
of  a  life  which,  though  it  may  not  be  as  truly 
typical  as  it  is  markedly  individual,  nevertheless 
represents  a  type  of  seemingly  increasing  promi- 
nence,— that  of  the  woman  in  whose  mental  make- 
up sex  does  not  appear  to  be  of  prime  and  deci- 
sive importance.  I  do  not  refer  to  the  mannish 
woman, — that  ephemeral  product  of  hybrid  civili- 
zation,— but  to  the  woman  whose  instincts  and  in- 
terests are  intellectual  rather  than  domestic;  one 
who  marries  if  the  man  comes  her  way,  but  other- 
[vii] 


FOREWORD 

wise  "hunts"  congenial  activity  in  preference  to 
man  or  motherhood.  To  this  interesting  and  happy 
enough  variation  of  womankind,  gallant  Uncle 
Sam  has  long  granted  an  important  share  in  public 
activities,  while  "Brother  Michel"  still  holds  aloof. 
Among  the  hundreds,  or  shall  I  say  thousands,  of 
brave,  restless  German  women  who  during  the  latter 
half  of  the  last  century  left  the  Fatherland  in  order 
to  seek  larger,  freer  fields  of  activity  in  foreign  coun- 
tries, none  perhaps  has  done  more  for  her  own  peo- 
ple or  won  more  distinction  in  her  new  home  than 
Carla  Wenckebach.  Yet  none  could  have  been  less 
conscious  of  her  own  achievement, — and  this  fact 
has  given  added  zest  to  my  work  as  biographer. 

In  regard  to  material  I  have  been  unusually 
fortunate  in  being  able  to  gather  largely  from 
Fraulein  Wenckebach's  nearest  friends  and  rela- 
tives, including  her  mother,  who  died  only  recently; 
and  there  were  many  other  people  available  from 
whom  I  have  extorted  their  last  bit  of  information. 
Through  frequent  and  prolonged  visits  in  East 
Frisia,  her  home  in  Northern  Germany,  I  have  be- 
come familiar  with  the  customs  and  traditions  of 
the  country  and  with  the  personnel  of  its  sturdy  in- 
habitants, whose  national  motto  is,  Ealafrea  Fr^- 
sena!  "Hail  to  thee,  free  Frisian!"  Myself  a  native 
[  viii  ] 


FOREWORD 

of  Hannover,  I  was  also  thoroughly  at  home  in  the 
atmosphere  that  surrounded  her  during  her  school 
days  there  and  in  Hildesheim.  And  for  the  period 
between  these  school  days  and  her  career  at  Welles- 
ley,  I  had  overwhelmingly  rich  treasures  of  manu- 
script. Most  of  the  quotations  I  have  given  are  from 
letters  to  her  family.  I  have  also  made  frequent 
use  of  an  autobiographical  manuscript  novel,  which, 
for  the  sake  of  convenience,  I  have  referred  to  as 
"notes." 

The  most  disheartening  drawback  to  my  work 
of  biographer  has  been  that  circumstances  com- 
pelled me  to  interpret  a  subject  so  thoroughly  Ger- 
man through  the  medium  of  a  language  not  my 
mother  tongue;  and  that  whenever  I  wanted  to 
quote,  I  have  had  to  translate.  And  here  I  must  con- 
fess that  it  was  often  impossible  to  render  into  Eng- 
lish all  the  quaint  peculiarities  of  Carla  Wencke- 
bach's style,  the  strength,  the  picturesqueness,  the 
raciness  of  wit  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  involved 
constructions,  mixed  metaphors,  and  untranslatable 
puns  on  the  other.  Need  I  say  that  I  have  not  been 
so  careful  to  reproduce  the  faults  of  her  style  as 
to  bring  out  its  beauties?  In  all  other  respects 
I  have  tried  to  be  faithful  to  my  ideal  of  uncom- 
promising veracity  of  presentation, — a  veracity 


FOREWORD 

such  as  only  a  lovingly  close  yet  artistically  de- 
tached view-point  could  make  possible.  I  have  also 
followed  my  predilection  for  such  manner  of  treat- 
ment as  Thackeray  describes  when  he  says,  "I 
would  have  history  familiar  rather  than  heroic." 


CONTENTS 

PART  I  P^GE 

THE  CHILD  3 

PART  II 
THE  SCHOOLGIRL  45 

PART  III 
THE  WANDERER  107 

PART  IV 
THE  AMERICAN  191 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

PoKTRATT  OF  1897  FrotUtspiece 
Portrait  or  1873                                               Facxng 'page    12 

Portrait  of  1866  30 

Portrait  of  1869  88 

Portrait  of  1880  19T 

Portrait  of  1887  249 

Portrait  of  1898  288 


PART  I 
THE  CHILD 


A  sunny  childhood . .  .  had  stored  up  in  him 
an  inexhaustible  treasure  of  inner  serenity. 
Pessimism  has  never  entirely  possessed  a  soul 
who  can  keep  the  memory  of  golden  days  of 
youth  to  brighten  life  when  darkness  sets  in. 
B.  M.  Meyer's  "goethe.** 


IT  was  on  St.  Valentine's  Day  in  the  ancient  city 
of  Hildesheim,  and  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  one 
thousand  eight  hundred  and  fifty-three,  that  Life 
played  fairy  godmother  to  the  Royal  Hannoverian 
Deputy  Postmaster  Carl  Georg  Christian  Wencke- 
bach and  his  wife  Marie  Sophie  Dorothea.  Just  after 
the  bell  from  the  thousand-year-old  cathedral  (the 
"Dom")  near  by  had  struck  midnight,  there  ap- 
peai-ed  in  the  green-curtained  family  cradle  a  pair 
of  rosy  twins, — the  first,  so  the  chronicler  reports, 
marking  the  event  with  a  lively  kick  and  a  joyous 
crow,  the  other  following  in  demure  silence  and  with 
limbs  tired  from  waiting. 

Before  two  weeks  were  over,  the  little  late-comer 
had  gone  out  of  the  world  as  quietly  as  she  had 
entered  it,  and  her  more  robust  sister  was  left  sole 
possessor  of  the  cradle  which,  until  the  twins  came, 
had  been  occupied  by  Claus,  the  eldest  bom,  a 
blond-haired  and  blue-eyed  boy  of  two. 

The  baby,  rolled  up  in  her  swaddling-clothes, 
looked,  we  suppose,  much  like  other  babies  of  the 
time, — a  time  that  did  not  allow  much  freedom  of 
motion  of  any  kind  and  tied  up  its  infants  as  securely 
in  swathing-bands  as  it  did  its  adults  in  enthralling 
[3] 


•     "  • "  dARLA  WENCKEBACH 

bonds  of  reactionary  laws.  All  the  approved  instru- 
ments of  torture  devised  for  the  agony  of  infants, 
— the  stiff  linen  cap,  the  coarse  fustian  jacket,  the 
narrow  bag  for  the  feet,  and  the  long,  stiff  knitted 
band  intended  to  be  wound  round  and  round  the 
soft  little  body  to  give  it  "stability,^' — all  these, 
we  may  be  sure,  were  inflicted  on  our  baby.  Her 
fitness  for  survival  was  further  tested  by  a  number 
of  hot  and  heavy  feather  beds  massed  underneath 
and  on  top  of  the  little  martyr.  The  consequence 
was  that  in  spite  of  her  natural  vigor  she  succumbed 
and  threatened  to  go  the  way  of  her  twin.  But  after 
a  few  weeks  she  rallied  again  so  quickly  that,  much 
to  the  satisfaction  of  Frau  Marie,  the  day  set  apart 
for  the  jolly  celebration  of  her  baptism  did  not  need 
to  be  postponed  at  all  beyond  "decent""  limits.  The 
little  heathen  was  only  seven  weeks  old  when  they 
took  her  to  the  Protestant  church  of  St.  Andrew's, 
the  same  in  which  John  Bugenhagen  of  old  had 
preached  his  first  sermon  of  heresy.  Here  the  four 
godmothers,  the  four  wives  of  four  Royal  Han- 
noverian  Deputy  Postmasters,  standing  round  the 
magnificent  old  font,  not  only  promised  to  watch 
over  the  child's  spiritual  welfare,  but  in  addition 
gave  her  their  four  Christian  names, — Anna,  Doris, 
Amalie,  Katharine. 

[*] 


THE  CHILD 

She  was  called  by  none  of  these  names,  however, 
for  the  parents  did  not  like  them,  much  as  they  may 
have  valued  their  possessors.  They  prefeiTed  the  old 
pagan  name  of  Catd  to  the  Christian  Katharine; 
and  because,  even  to  the  hardy  Frisian  ear,  Catd 
sounded  rather  too  severe  for  a  soft  little  baby, 
they  changed  it  into  the  Frisian  pet  name  of  Tosi. 
Catd-Tosi  she  was,  then,  and  Catd-Tosi  she  remained 
until —  but  that  belongs  in  another  chapter. 

Tosi  was  a  good  child :  she  slept  like  her  favorite 
playmate,  the  kitten,  and  ate  with  much  gusto, 
never  overdoing  in  either.  There  was  no  fussiness 
about  her,  and  she  was  never  heard  to  scream  ex- 
cept when  the  food  did  not  appear  at  the  accus- 
tomed hour,  or  when  the  older  brother  petted  her 
too  much  or  dealt  her  an  unexpected  blow.  She  had 
none  of  the  dainty,  gingerly  ways  of  little  Claus, 
who  wept  when  he  got  his  hands  or  his  clothes  soiled, 
and  who  could  play  for  hours  making  finery  for  his 
dolls.  Tosi,  to  his  disgust,  rather  enjoyed  dirt,  and 
was  happiest  when  she  could  romp  on  the  floor  with 
Mieseken,  the  cat,  or  could  make  mud  pies  with  the 
street  urchins  in  the  courtyard  behind  the  gabled 
house. 

Soon  it  appeared,  though  the  mother's  devoted 
love  for  her  firstborn  would  hardly  have  let  her 
[5] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

acknowledge  it,  that  Tosi  was  an  unusually  clever 
child.  When  she  was  scarcely  more  than  fifteen 
months  old  she  had  mastered  the  rudiments  of 
a  practical  German  vocabulary.  One  of  her  greatest 
delights,  moreover,  was  to  sit  on  her  father's  lap, 
repeating  the  big  words  that  he  rolled  out  for  her, 
— words,  maybe,  like  PodbielsJci,  Sebastopol,  Unah- 
hdngigkeitskampf,  and  others  that  were  in  the  air 
at  that  time.  Such  words,  pronounced  with  ever 
varying  intonations  and  in  surpnsingly  novel  com- 
binations, were  as  interesting  to  Tosi  as  his  dolls 
were  to  Claus.  She  would  sing  them,  shout  them, 
whisper  them  to  the  cradle,  the  walls,  the  kitten, 
whenever  she  felt  herself  unobserved.  And  what  bet- 
ter game  could  there  have  been  devised  for  a  future 
orator! 


[6] 


II 

THE  Fates  smiled  on  the  little  blond-haired 
and  blue-eyed  family  in  the  modest  apartment 
of  the  picturesque  old  Hildesheim  house,  and  spun 
them  a  series  of  peaceful,  uneventful  days  and 
months  and  years.  HeiT  Wenckebach,  a  handsome, 
middle-aged  man,  and  his  buxom  Frau  Marie,  the 
younger  sister  of  his  deceased  first  wife,  were  a 
happily  matched  couple,  whose  even  tempers  and 
simple,  quiet  ways  harmoniously  enveloped  the  bud- 
ding lives  about  them.  They  had  both  been  accus- 
tomed to  hard  times  and  frugal  living  from  their 
childhood  up,  and  now  enjoyed  their  little  share 
of  ease  and  peace  with  grateful  hearts.  Out  of  the 
four  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  that  a  Royal  Gov- 
ernment paid  its  Royal  Postmaster  per  annum, 
they  could  squeeze  a  wonderful  amount  of  solid 
comfort  and  enjoyment.  Even  an  occasional  trip  to 
Hannover,  the  capital  of  the  kingdom,  lying  fifteen 
miles  south  of  Hildesheim,  was  not  entirely  out  of 
the  question.  From  time  to  time  the  eager  Herr 
Postmeister,  urged  by  domestic  Frau  Marie,  would 
betake  himself  to  this  Eldorado  to  feast  his  mind 
on  the  exquisite  performances  at  the  court  theater 
of  George  V,  or  to  quicken  his  soul  in  the  strains 
[7] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

of  Joachim's  wonderful  violin.  There  was  a  hunger 
in  him  for  things  beautiful  and  intellectual  that  his 
humdrum  life  of  a  post-official  only  intensified.  His 
forefathers  as  far  back  as  the  fifteenth  century  had 
all  been  university  men, — lawyers,  judges,  mayors, 
and  the  like, — but  he,  like  many  men  of  his  time, 
had  been  cheated  out  of  the  university  education  in 
consequence  of  the  terrible  poverty  that  Germany's 
wars  with  Napoleon  had  brought  down  on  her  sons. 
He  never  complained  about  his  lot,  however,  partly 
because  he  had  an  unusual  amount  of  good  Frisian 
common  sense,  and  partly,  too,  because  he  knew  that 
kind  Fate  had  a  piece  of  good  fortune  in  store  for 
him. 

In  the  Wenckebachs'  gute  Stvhe  there  hung,  a 
little  apart  from  the  family  daguerreotypes  with 
which  the  wall  under  the  sofa  mirror  was  covered, 
a  picture  of  goodly  size  bearing  a  conspicuous  air 
of  distinction.  It  was  a  holiday  treat  for  the  chil- 
dren to  be  admitted  to  this  "  best  room," — Frau 
Marie's  sanctuary  of  furniture  worship, — and,  high 
in  their  father's  arms,  to  get  a  good  look  at  ^^ihe 
big  picture."  This  was  a  fine  reproduction  of  an 
excellent  oil  painting,  the  original  of  which  may 
still  be  seen  in  the  museum  of  Emden,  the  capital 
of  East  Frisia.  It  represents  a  man  of  about  forty- 


THE  CHILD 

five  whose  firm  chin,  fair  complexion,  light  blond 
hair,  and  dark  blue  eyes  betray  the  Wenckebach. 
Something,  however,  in  the  curve  of  his  exquisitely 
chiseled  mouth,  in  the  half  playful,  half  ironical 
look  of  his  eyes,  in  the  curls  carefully  rolled  up  over 
his  delicately  fashioned  ears,  in  the  fastidious  non- 
chalance with  which  his  neckwear  is  arranged,  marks 
him  out  from  the  company  of  wooden-looking  Fri- 
sian dignitaries  on  the  walls  of  the  museum,  as  it  set 
him  apart  from  his  siuroundings  in  the  stiff  little 
parlor  at  Hildesheim. 

This  was  "Uncle  Wenckebach,'"  the  cultivated 
and  courtly  chief  of  the  family  clan,  whom  his  rela- 
tives of  more  heroic  character  had  good-naturedly 
nicknamed  "Mademoiselle  Wenckebach,"  not  only 
on  account  of  his  grace  and  daintiness,  but  also  on 
account  of  his  Dutch  wife  and  other  anti-Frisian 
eccentricities.  The  living  reality  behind  the  picture, 
however,  had  meanwhile  grown  to  be  a  decrepit  old 
man,  who,  over  his  knitting, — an  occupation  to 
which  blindness  had  reduced  him, — slowly  nodded 
himself  to  sleep. 

News  reached  the  Hildesheim  post-office  in  the 

fall   of  1854   that   Uncle  Wenckebach,  officially 

known  as  Johann  Heinrich  Georg  Wenckebach,  had 

died,  and  that  his  nephew,  Carl  Georg  Christian, 

[9] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

was  now  "  lord  "of  the  fine  family  estate  *  inUpgant, 
East  Frisia. 

The  Herr  Postmeister  was  calmly  satisfied  that 
kind  Nature  had  taken  her  course,  and  had  finally 
delivered  his  uncle  and  him  from  their  respective 
burdens.  But  Frau  Marie's  heart  leaped  for  joy  and 
gratitude  at  the  thought  of  being  proprietress  of 
a  goodly  portion  of  East  Frisian  soil,  to  which  she 
clung  even  more  tenaciously  than  did  her  husband. 
For  she  had  grown  up  in  a  little  country  place, — 
which  had  been  the  home,  too,  of  her  postmaster, 
— and  she  loved  the  country,  not  so  much  perhaps 
for  its  own  sake,  as  for  the  sake  of  her  associations 
with  it,  and  for  the  advantages  it  had  over  the  city 
in  the  eyes  of  a  devoted  housewife.  A  new  post- 
master provided,  Herr  Wenckebach  was  ready  to 
take  himself  and  his  family  away  from  old  Hildes- 
heim. 


*  This  estate,  being  a  fidei  commis,  falls  back  into  the  possession  of 
the  state  when  the  male  branch  of  the  family  dies  out. 

[  10] 


Ill 

IT  was  on  a  fine  spring  morning  in  1855  that  the 
little  Frisian  tribe,  about  whose  "foreignness" 
the  Hildesheimers  had  probably  gossiped  all  the 
more  because  it  had  charmed  them,  were  cheered 
away  from  the  Hildesheim  station  with  stiff  Ger- 
man nosegays  and  ready  German  tears, — no  jour- 
ney in  Germany  could  be  ventured  upon  without 
the  comfort  of  these.  And  the  bitterest  tears  were 
shed,  I  am  told,  by  two  children, — by  little  Tosi, 
who  had  to  leave  her  kitten  behind,  and  by  the 
substitute  ^o  tem  for  the  kitten, — a  handsome, 
fair-haired  girl  of  fourteen,  who  had  to  tear  herself 
from  a  beloved  mother  in  order  to  help  earn  bread 
for  a  fatherless  family  of  nine  by  acting  as  a  sort 
of  nursery  governess  to  the  Wenckebach  children. 
That  this  little  maiden,  who  subsequently  developed 
into  a  woman  of  rare  power  and  insight,  happened 
to  become  the  chief  guide  and  inspiration  of  Tosi's 
early  years,  was  the  first  of  those  morsels  of  extra 
good  luck  with  which  a  kind  guardian  angel  fa- 
vored his  charge. 

But  on  that  sad  day  of  parting  Auguste  Alfeis 
was  only  a  child. needing  comfort  as  much  as  little 
Tosi  did.  So,  when  the  first  violent  grief  was  over, 

[11] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

they  comforted  each  other, — now  as  ever  after- 
wards,— Auguste  by  giving,  Tosi  by  contentedly 
taking  what  was  offered.  Later  in  life  these  gifts  of 
Auguste  to  Tosi  were  the  devotion  of  a  generous 
nature,  the  wisdom  of  a  lover  of  human  hearts,  the 
unconscious  influence  of  a  personality  touched  with 
genius.  For  the  present,  they  were  kindergarten 
songs  which  Claus  had  learned  to  sing  in  the  lit- 
tle kindergarten  of  Auguste's  mother,  and  kinder- 
garten games,  with  which  the  untiring  Auguste  held 
the  attention  of  both  children  and  parents  when- 
ever the  sport  of  seeing  houses  and  fields  and  trees 
fly  p«ist  the  windows  lost  its  attraction. 

The  end  of  the  railway  world  in  those  days  was 
Bremen.  From  there  on,  the  jerking  and  jolting 
of  the  Bummelzug  (cautious  Frau  Marie  had  been 
afraid  to  try  a  faster  train)  was  exchanged  for  the 
jig-jog  of  the  yellow  mail-coach,  by  which  our  party 
passed  now  over  the  melancholy  sands  and  moors, 
now  through  the  rich  forests  and  marshes  of  the 
duchy  of  Oldenburg,  and  found  themselves  in  East 
Frisia  just  at  sunrise. 

How  eagerly  the  travelers  must  have  looked  about 

them  that  morning!  What  they  saw,  we  presume, 

was  exactly  what  the  modem  traveler — as  yet  a 

rara  avis  in  East  Frisia — would  see  now  in  those 

[12] 


'.,•  ;•'.  u^'  ' 


£uc7>(L^i^J^ 


THE  CHILD 

sea-girt  lowlands, — fresh  green  meadows  studded 
with  sleek  cattle;  candle-shaped  red  church  spires 
with  red  villages  clustering  about  them;  solitary 
farmsteads,  their  gabled  roofs  of  thatch  or  tile 
protected  against  the  fierce  blasts  of  the  north  wind 
by  a  high  hedge  of  close-set  and  neatly  trimmed 
linden  trees;  gray  poplars  growing  in  stately  inde- 
pendence; birches  and  hawthorn  bushes  clustering 
in  cosy  groups;  long  military  lines  of  mountain  ash 
or  maple  marking  the  conventional  thoroughfares; 
and  best  and  dearest  of  all,  glistening  canals  with 
brown  sails  slowly  gliding  seaward,  and  windmills 
flapping  their  arms  about  in  wild  joy  as  they  are 
wont  to  do  whenever  a  child  of  the  soil  returns 
home. 

In  one  of  the  little  country  towns, — there  are  no 
real  cities  in  East  Frisia,— the  grandparents  came 
to  the  mail  tavern  from  the  town  where  both  the 
grandfathers  ruled  as  magistrates,  to  shake  hands 
with  their  children  and  to  inspect  the  youngest 
generation  of  Wenckebachs. 

And  here  Tosi  disgraced  herself — she  would  not 
kiss  one  of  the  grandmothers,  the  good,  but  stem- 
looking  stepmother  of  Frau  Marie,  and  she  screamed 
at  the  sight  of  a  crippled  and  disfigured  relative. 
When  her  mother,  applying  some  pedagogic  mas- 
[13] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

sage, attempted  to  make  her  "behave,"  the  tired  and 
frightened  child  threw  herself  on  the  floor,  kicking 
vehemently  and  shrieking  out  Nein^  nein,  nein  with 
ever  increasing  temper.  Parents  and  grandparents, 
to  whom  obedience  was  second  nature,  and  who 
had  an  inborn  dread  of  everything  that  savored  of 
a  "scene,"  stood  by  in  helpless  bewilderment  at 
this  unprecedented  outburst  of  passion  in  their 
progeny.  Young  Auguste,  however,  picked  up  the 
kicker  in  her  muscular  arms  and  removed  her  from 
the  sphere  of  unwelcome  sights,  such  as  birthmarks 
and  crippled  bodies,  and  out  of  range  of  these  rasp- 
ing Frisian  voices,  whose  unaccustomed  harshness 
had  probably  helped  to  frighten  the  sensitive  child. 
When  the  two  appeared  again  Tosi  was  radiantly 
happy,  playing  with  the  bright  silver  dollar  that 
Auguste's  mother  had  given  her  daughter  for  a 
mascot.  This  talisman  worked  such  wonders  on  the 
little  reprobate  that  on  parting  she  was  willing, 
though  reluctantly,  to  save  her  reputation  of  a 
"good  child"  by  waving  a  hasty  "by-by"  to  the 
old  folks. 

At  last  the  travelers  reached  the  old  church  town 
of  Marienhafe,  near  which  the  Wenckebach  "Burg," 
as  the  villagers  called  it, — a  stately,  gray,  tile- 
topped  farmhouse, — was  snugly  situated  in  lordly 
[14] 


THE  CHILD 

surroundings  of  groves  and  gardens.  Through  a 
gorgeous  triumphal  arch  erected  by  the  men  and 
maids  who  were  inherited  with  the  place,  they  en- 
tered the  imposing  avenue  of  venerable  chestnut 
trees  leading  to  the  manor  house. 

The  men,  in  knickerbockers,  high  hats,  and  short 
jackets,  shot  off  pistols  in  honor  of  the  new  master; 
the  yellow-haired  women,  in  dark,  voluminous  skirts, 
with  gay  ribbons  and  flowers  in  their  black  lace 
caps,  and  with  funny  feminine  swallowtails  on  their 
jackets,  dropped  their  best  curtsies;  while  white- 
headed  and  barefooted  children  shyly  peeped  at 
the  newcomers  from  behind  the  hawthorn  hedges. 
There  was  no  singing  or  reciting  of  poetry  to  wel- 
come them,  as  there  would  have  been  in  other  parts 
of  Germany  on  such  occasions,  for — as  Tacitus  of 
old  ti-uly  observed — Frisia  non  cant  at. 


[15] 


IV 

THERE  were  five  ponderous  baldachined  four- 
posters  in  the  low  and  rambling  gray  house 
to  receive  the  weary  travelers.  The  one  that  awaited 
Frau  Marie  and  her  husband  stood  in  a  fastidiously 
furnished  bedroom  upstairs,  but  was  soon  removed 
to  a  room  on  the  ground  floor.  Was  it  the  elevated 
position  of  this  room — it  was  just  above  the  high 
cellar  dairy — that  attracted  the  proud  little  Frau 
Postmeister  to  it,  or  its  vicinity  to  her  special  realm, 
the  kitchen,  or  her  unconscious  adherence  to  that 
old  custom  which  made  owners  of  a  farm  couch  on 
top  of  their  hoard,  the  dairy?  Certain  it  is  that 
there  was  nothing  attractive  about  the  room  itself, 
for  it  was  a  low,  bamlike  place,  hardly  spacious 
enough  to  hold  the  huge  green  majolica  stove  and 
the  enormous  bed  with  the  crib  for  the  perennial 
baby,  to  say  nothing  of  a  big  oak  table  and  other 
sizable  paraphernalia  of  the  household.  But  Frau 
Marie,  who  always  had  her  own  decided  taste,  liked 
it  immensely  and  made  it  the  sanctuary  of  her 
family  tabernacle. 

So,  for  thirty  years,  this  room  remained  the  pa- 
rental bedchamber,  the  Herr  Postmeister  retreat- 
ing to  one  of  the  handsome  guest  rooms  upstairs 
[  16] 


THE  CHILD 

pending  the  birth  of  a  child.  It  also  served  as 
the  family  dining,  sewing,  and  living  room  when- 
ever the  weather  necessitated  the  use  of  stoves, 
which  in  this  cold,  damp  climate  was  the  case  for 
almost  three  fourths  of  the  entire  year. 

"Yes,  the  most  important  room  in  the  house 
was  the  ugliest,  too,"  says  Auguste  Alfeis  with  a 
reminiscent  groan.  But  this  did  not  trouble  its  East 
Frisian  owners,  whose  art  sense  had  never  been 
awakened.  In  fact  none  of  the  rooms  in  the  house 
was  conspicuous  for  beauty,  in  spite  of  the  magnif- 
icent old  furnishings.  For  the  splendid  Brussels  car- 
pets, that  even  now  have  not  quite  outlived  their  use- 
fulness, were  protected  in  spots  by  cheap,  gay  rugs; 
exquisite  inlaid  tables  were  covered  with  white  nap- 
kins or  gaudy,  fringed  tablecloths;  furniture  uphol- 
stered in  fine  brocade  was  blotted  here  and  there  by 
fussy,  bright  tidies;  the  long  mirrors  between  the 
windows  were  separated  from  their  marble  supports, 
and  the  latter,  laden  with  gimcrackery  of  all  sorts, 
were  removed  to  comers;  the  few  good  books  were 
banished  to  the  attic  or  hidden  in  closets;  worthless 
genre  pictures  or  family  daguerreotypes  were  hung 
next  to  fine  old  English  engravings.  So  the  house 
was  decidedly  inartistic  in  appearance,  but  it  was 
pervaded  by  an  atmosphere  of  Gemiitlichkeit,  of 
[17] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

peace  and  plenty,  of  kindliness  and  cheer,  that  more 
than  made  up  for  the  absence  of  beauty. 

Though  there  was  a  great  deal  of  rubbing  and 
scrubbing,  it  was  never  allowed  to  interfere  with 
anybody's  comfort,  and  there  was  no  hustle  and 
bustle,  no  scolding  and  bickering,  connected  with  it. 
Frau  Marie's  reverence  for  her  furniture  affected  the 
children's  comfort  only  so  far  as  to  require  them 
(his  little  princeship  Claus  always  excepted)  to  sit 
on  kitchen  stools  whenever  the  family  and  their 
summer  guests  dined  in  state  in  Uncle  Wencke- 
bach's fine  old  dining  hall.  Woe  to  the  little  greasy 
fingers  that  dared  at  such  times  to  meddle  with  the 
splendid  polish  of  the  stately  high-backed  chairs. 
Frau  Marie  did  not  scold  on  such  occasions, — in 
fact  she  hardly  ever  scolded, — but  she  had  a  large 
store  of  good-natured  ridicule  which  the  children 
feared  far  more  than  any  angry  words,  and  which, 
moreover,  had  the  advantage  of  never  disturbing 
the  serenity  and  peace  of  the  household.  Frau  Marie 
would  have  peace  at  all  costs,  for  she  herself  had 
suffered  enough  from  the  absence  of  it  in  her  own 
family,  — a  family  of  nine  children  ruled  by  a  step- 
mother whose  fine  moral  character  could  shed  no 
warmth  because  the  graces  were  lacking.  When 
Frau  Marie,  at  the  age  of  twenty-five,  had  married 
[18] 


THE  CHILD 

the  man  of  her  heart's  desire,  the  object  of  her  ear- 
liest girlish  fancy,  she  had  silently,  in  her  happi- 
ness, promised  herself  to  let  her  own  children  — 
there  was  no  doubt  in  her  young  mind  that  she 
would  have  plenty  of  them — enjoy  the  freedom  and 
peace  she  herself  had  so  sorely  missed. 

And  she  thoroughly  succeeded  in  making  her 
home  an  earthly  paradise  for  her  little  ones,  whose 
joys  were  thousandfold.  Every  succeeding  year 
opened  a  new  heaven  of  bliss,  in  which  the  central 
sun,  the  Christmas  tree,  shone  forth  with  mystic 
splendor,  shedding  its  lights  of  anticipation  and 
fulfillment  all  through  the  long,  dark  winter  days. 
The  festivals  of  Easter,  of  Whitsuntide,  of  Michael- 
mas, and  not  less  that  of  the  eighth  of  October,  the 
birthday  of  both  parents,  were  surrounded  by  a  deep 
glow  of  joy.  The  fifty-two  happy  Sundays  of  each 
year  were  like  so  many  shining  stars,  whose  steady 
light  was  but  dimmed  at  times  by  comets  and 
meteors  such  as  the  Schlachtfest,*  the  visits  from 
a  beloved  boy  cousin,  the  village  fairs,  the  births, 
burials,  and  weddings  in  the  neighborhood. 

Elderly  Herr  Wenckebach,  who  disliked  farming 
and,  aside  from  his  favorite  pursuit  of  weeding  the 


*  A  feast  given  by  the  owner  of  an  estate,  etc.,  on  occasion  of  the 
slaughtering  of  pigs. 


[19] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

garden,  had  not  taken  any  particular  duties  upon 
himself,  was  a  jolly  playmate  for  the  children.  He 
frequently  romped  about  with  his  youngsters  in 
spite  of  a  large  portion  of  dignity,  the  most  con- 
spicuous emblem  of  which  was  a  starched  shirt 
that,  much  to  the  astonishment  of  the  villagers,  he 
wore  even  on  week  days.  On  Sunday  afternoons  he 
often  made  the  children  shout  with  delight  over 
his  ingenious  nonsense  medleys  and  his  perfect 
mimicry  of  old  peasants,  peddlers,  and  Jews.  The 
latter  especially,  to  whose  craftiness  the  guileless 
man  repeatedly  fell  a  victim,  and  who  were,  there- 
fore, not  allowed  on  the  premises  by  his  energetic 
Frau,  often  were  the  subject  of  Sunday  afternoon 
hilarity. 

Frau  Marie  herself  never  had  any  time  to  play 
with  her  little  ones;  when  they  teased  her  for  it, 
she  would  tell  them  with  great  seriousness  that  she 
had  "a  bone  in  her  leg,"  a  complaint  which  did 
not  fail  to  inspire  them  with  awe.  But  occasionally, 
— perhaps  as  often  as  twenty  times  during  the 
year, —  she  gave  them  a  treat  of  her  own :  a  sweet 
pudding  or  a  savory  soup  for  dinner  in  addition  to 
the  accustomed  one-course  meal  of  meat  and  vege- 
tables. 

And  there  was  one  blessed  season  of  the  year 
[20] 


THE  CHILD 

when  the  sturdy  Hausfrau  changed  into  a  regular 
fairy  godmother.  This  happened  during  the  time 
when  the  green  shutters  of  the  big  hall  downstairs 
remained  closed  all  day  long;  when  the  yellow  mail- 
coach  brought  mysterious  boxes  and  parcels,  and 
took  away  Frau  Marie  for  a  whole  day  at  a  time; 
when  Auguste  and  the  father  told  fairy  stories  in 
the  dark,  and  all  sang  songs  charged  with  delicious 
promise;  when  the  children  wrote  "wish-papers" 
for  St.  Nicholas,  and  with  beating  hearts  put  them 
on  the  window-sill  outside,  never  forgetting  to  add 
some  bread  for  the  hungry  Saint  and  some  cabbage 
leaves  or  wisps  of  hay  for  his  weary  steed.  This  is 
the  blessed  season  when  all  over  Gei-many  the  voices 
of  ancient  joy  and  faith  are  gathered  into  one 
mighty  chorus  of  jubilant  love  at  the  celebration 
around  the  mystic  tree  of  light.  It  was  at  Christ- 
mas that  Frau  Marie  became  lavish,  that  she  spent 
unheard-of  sums  for  toys,  cakes,  fruit,  and  even 
for  candy, — an  article  that  was  rarely  found  in  the 
Burg  except  at  Chnstmas  time. 

Auguste,  the  ingenious  little  nursery  governess, 
was  of  course  the  constant  playmate  and  compan- 
ion of  the  children.  She  never  tired  of  telling  them 
stories,  of  singing  to  them,  of  devising  for  them 
interesting  and  instructive  games,  particularly  for 
[21   ] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

Tosi,  to  whom  she  was  especially  devoted.  Being  of 
a  deeply  religious  nature  she  also  tried  to  instill 
into  her  little  charge  a  love  for  her  Creator;  she 
opened  her  eyes  to  the  beauties  of  His  world,  and 
she  taught  her  the  childish  prayers  that  all  her  life 
remained  dear  to  Tosi  on  siccount  of  their  associa- 
tion with  Auguste's  melodious  voice. 


[22] 


ONE  thing,  however,  even  Auguste  could  not 
give  to  little  Tosi,  and  that  was  a  liking  for 
and  a  skill  in  needlework,  that  German  test  of  true 
womanliness.  Tosi  seems  to  have  been  born  with 
an  utter  contempt  for  it,  and  when,  at  five  years 
of  age,  she  was  sent  from  home  to  stay  for  a  while 
with  her  grandparents,  and  the  grandmother  con- 
scientiously set  about  making  "the  young  obsti- 
nate" leam  to  knit,  the  silent  child  grew  paler  and 
thinner  each  day  and  finally  collapsed  entirely,  so 
that  the  frightened  old  lady  had  to  take  her  home 
quickly  to  prevent  serious  illness. 

The  parents  then  gave  up  trying  to  pattern 
Tosi's  character  after  that  of  the  average  German 
maid  of  her  day;  henceforth  she  was  allowed  to 
follow  her  own  predilections,  which  were  decidedly 
not  those  of  a  girl.  Not  only  did  she  prefer  boys' 
games  and  playthings, — she  frequently  "swapped" 
her  own  feminine  Christmas  presents  for  those  of 
her  elder  brother, — but  she  also  chose  boys  exclu- 
sively for  her  playmates;  moreover,  she  persuaded 
her  mother  that  it  would  be  economy  to  let  her 
dress  like  a  boy. 

Geerd,  the  gallant  young  son  of  the  village  baker, 
[23] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH  ' 

and  in  vacations  her  clever  cousin,  Georg  Kegel, 
were  her  constant  companions.  These  boys,  though 
older  than  Tosi,  took  great  delight  in  their  young 
playmate,  whose  "manliness"  and  originality  es- 
pecially commanded  their  respect  and  admiration. 
In  their  reminiscences  of  her,  they  agree  in  prais- 
ing her  remarkable  fearlessness  and  determination, 
and  also  her  compassionate  kindness  towards  her 
younger  sisters. 

The  animals  were  her  special  pets.  She  always 
had  a  tame  "little  beast"  to  which  she  devoted  her- 
self,— a  cat,  a  magpie,  a  starling,  a  stork, — and  it 
was  in  connection  with  the  animal  world  especially 
that  she  showed  her  wonderful  power  of  observa- 
tion. It  was  Tosi  who  made  the  stolid  people  about 
her  see  the  beauty  of  a  spider's  web  or  of  a  honey- 
comb, and  who  interested  them  in  the  busy  markets 
of  ant-hills,  as  well  as  in  the  private  and  public  life 
of  the  family  of  storks  which  returned  every  year 
to  their  huge  nest  on  the  bam. 

Her  early  loyalty  to  her  friends  is  a  trait  on  which 
Geerd  (who,  by  the  way,  is  now  a  prosperous  inn- 
keeper) dwells  with  pride  and  pleasure.  He  tells 
how  one  warm  summer  afternoon  when  all  the  chil- 
dren were  exhausted  with  playing,  the  Frau  Post- 
meister  sent  word  to  them  to  come  in  and  eat  rasp- 
[24] 


THE  CHILD 

berries  with  whipped  cream.  "With  a  shout  of  de- 
light," Geerd  says,  "we  stormed  the  Burg,  I  keeping 
modestly  in  the  rear.  Suddenly  Claus  Wenckebach 
turned  round  on  me,  and,  hitting  me  on  the  chest, 
hissed:  'You  beggar,  you  shall  not  eat  in  my  house.' 
Sorely  hurt  and  disappointed  I  walked  off,  when  all 
at  once  Tosi  came  running  breathlessly  after  me. 
Taking  my  hand,  she  dragged  me  in  the  direction 
of  the  treat,  and  with  tears  in  her  eyes  assured  me 
that  Claus  was  'a  wicked,  bad  boy, — mamma  says 
so,  too.'" 

Geerd  repaid  such  kindliness  with  absolute  de- 
votion. He  not  only  did  everything  that  his  little 
"general"  wanted  him  to  do,  but  he  was  untiring 
in  devising  surprises  for  her, — a  bird's  nest,  full  of 
eggs,  to  which  he  helped  her  climb  (and  which  the 
children  never  touched);  an  eel  freshly  caught  in 
the  slime,  which  the  youngsters  smoked  and  then 
ate  with  gi-eat  gusto;  a  dead  chicken  which  they 
cut  open  with  beating  hearts  to  see  what  was  in- 
side; cigar  stumps  which  all  these  young  rogues 
collected  and  buried  in  the  ground  until  time  fa- 
vored secret  smoking  revels. 

Tosi,  like  the  rest,  was  passionately  fond  of  smok- 
ing. When  but  four  years  old,  she  had  been  found 
one  day  under  the  dining-room  table  deadly  pale 
[25] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

and  sick  from  her  first  attempt  at  finishing  a  cigar 
stump  that  her  father  had  left  on  the  sidehoard. 
This  painful  experience  had  the  strange  effect  of 
making  the  little  imp  willing  ever  afterwards  to 
attack  even  the  biggest  cigar. 

Zest  and  perseverance  also  characterized  the  way 
in  which  the  child  played  marbles  (her  favorite 
pastime  for  years)  with  the  boys.  It  was  generally 
not  a  harmless  game  for  "keeps,"  but  a  very  grown- 
up one  for  "stakes,"  and  in  playing  it  the  young 
Frisian  satisfied,  and  perhaps  checked,  any  old 
Teuton  gambling  instinct  that  might  have  lurked 
within  her. 

Another  art  of  masculine  stamp  to  which  Tosi 
was  devoted  from  her  early  years  was  that  of  whis- 
tling,— an  accomplishment  to  which  she  took  as 
naturally  as  the  bird  does  to  chirping.  Several  ear- 
witnesses  claim  to  remember  how  her  sweet,  deli- 
cate strains,  proceeding  generally  from  some  branch 
of  the  huge  linden  tree  in  front  of  the  manor  house, 
would  sometimes  set  all  the  nightingales  in  the 
groves  and  hedges  near  by  singing  lustily. 

Her  greatest  gift,  however,  and  the  one  which 

afforded  the  keenest  delight  to  herself,  was  talking, 

— telling  others  in  a  logical,  droll,  graphic  way 

about  the  many  things  she  observed  and  thought. 

[26] 


THE  CHILD 

Big  words,  the  charmers  of  her  cradlehood,  had 
kept  their  fascination  for  her.  She  collected  them 
as  others  do  butterflies  or  stamps,  using  them  in 
novel  combinations  whenever  she  talked  before  the 
children. 

Among  the  grown-ups,  the  men  especially  de- 
lighted in  the  vigorous  and  gifted  child.  The  la- 
borers in  the  field,  the  menservants  in  the  house, 
and  the  artisans  in  the  village,  all  were  her  friends. 
In  summer  she  went  harvesting  with  them,  par- 
taking of  their  coarse  food,  and  drinking  out  of  the 
flask  that  was  common  property  among  them;  in 
winter,  during  the  care-free  twilight  hours,  she 
smoked  with  them  out  of  a  little  pipe  that  they 
had  carved  for  her,  and  that  had  a  place  of  its  own 
on  the  big  pipe-rack  in  the  servants'  kitchen.  They 
taught  her  to  drive  and  to  ride  on  horseback,  to 
crack  the  whip  like  a  true  coachman,  and  to  shoot 
like  a  rifleman.  In  return  she  at  times  dropped  the 
low  German  in  which  she  conversed  with  them  to 
perfection,  and  told  them  stories  in  High  German, 
the  language  elevated  in  their  minds  by  its  exclu- 
sive use  in  school  and  church  and  among  gentlefolk. 

Two  years  ago  the  aged  master  blacksmith  of  the 
village  told  me  with  great  pride  and  feeling  how 
little  Tosi  used  to  come  to  his  forge  in  order  to 
[27] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

repair  her  gun  or  to  help  him  make  nails,  swinging 
the  hammer  like  a  bom  smith;  how  at  vespers,  when 
the  work  had  stopped  and  she  had  spooned  her  share 
out  of  the  common  family  pot,  she  would  sit  on  the 
anvil,  and  with  great  earnestness  and  simplicity 
harangue  the  gravely  attentive  men  about  her.  She 
told  them  stories  from  the  Arabian  Nights,  from  the 
Leather  Stocking  tales,  from  Greek  mythology.  She 
also  explained  thunderstorms  and  other  phenomena 
of  nature  to  them,  dwelling  with  special  fondness  on 
the  world  of  stars.  Tosi  was  fascinated  by  the  stars,  as 
she  was,  in  fact,  by  all  bright  and  sparkling  things. 
And  she  was  not  satisfied  merely  to  look  at  these, 
but  she  must  deck  herself  with  them.  So  she  often 
appeared  adorned  with  penny  watches  and  rings, 
with  necklaces  made  of  curtain  chains,  with  brace- 
lets and  belts  that  were   constructed  out  of  the 
trappings  of  horses  and  carriages.  This  extraordi- 
nary fondness  of  hers  for  all  things  shining  and  glit- 
tering an  astrologer  might  explain  by  the  fact  that 
the  sun  was  prominent  in  her  sign  at  the  hour  of 
her  birth.  Certain  it  is,  that  she  was  a  true  "child 
of  the  sun"  in  other  ways  than  this. 


[28] 


VI 

NOT  even  to  this  child  of  the  sun,  however, 
growing  up  in  a  happy  home,  could  life  con- 
tinue to  yield  naught  but  sunshine  and  delight,  nor 
could  the  "sun-spots"  in  her  character  always  re- 
main undiscovered.  The  chains  of  custom  and  tra- 
dition and  the  weights  of  the  ordinary  and  conven- 
tional, that  have  ever  pressed  hard  on  spirits  of 
individual  stamp,  bore  heavily  on  even  the  young 
maiden. 

The  first  bitter  taste  of  the  realities  of  social 
existence  Tosi  experienced  at  the  time  when  her 
brother  Claus  was  sent  to  the  Gymnasium  at 
Hildesheim,  and  Auguste,  after  years  of  devoted 
service  to  the  Wenckebach  family,  left  Upgant  to 
prepare  herself  for  her  chosen  work  of  nursing.  Tosi 
was  then  seven  years  old.  Up  to  this  time  she  had 
been  allowed  to  develop  in  almost  absolute  freedom 
from  restraint,  being  obliged  to  observe  only  the 
few  strict  miles  of  the  Wenckebach  household,  such 
as, — be  punctual  at  meals;  treat  the  servants  with 
respect;  do  not  quarrel  with  anybody;  do  not  play 
the  telltale;  do  not  ask  your  elders  for  things  which 
they  have  refused  once  for  all, — laws  which  a  child 
of  a  healthyappetite,  of  democratic  and  peace-loving 
[29] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

instincts,  of  an  inborn  respect  for  authority,  could 
follow  as  easily  almost  as  the  laws  of  his  own  na- 
ture. Not  even  at  the  village  school,  which  she  had 
attended  from  her  fifth  yeai*  on,  and  where  she  had 
quickly  mastered  the  elements  of  "religion,"  of 
reading,  writing,  and  arithmetic,  had  she  ever  been 
made  to  feel  any  restraint,  for  the  old  schoolmas- 
ter, who  freely  vented  his  choleric  temper  on  the 
backs  of  the  village  urchins,  never  touched  the  eager 
child,  or  even  so  much  as  reprimanded  her. 

The  trouble  began  when  Frau  Marie,  after  re- 
peatedly discovering  dire  results  from  Tosi's  close 
contact  with  the  little  thatched  heads,  her  school- 
mates, decided  that  the  "boy"  in  her  little  daughter 
had  had  his  full  share  of  development,  and  that  the 
time  had  come  when  the  "girl,"  too,  must  be  given 
a  chance  to  grow.  So  Tosi  was  separated  from  her 
boy  comrades  and  sent  to  a  private  school,  recently 
established  in  Marienhafe,  for  the  young  daughters 
of  the  dignitaries  of  the  village,  such  as  the  Herr 
Postmeister,  the  pastor,  doctor,  veterinary  surgeon, 
and  apothecary.  By  way  of  prelude,  Frau  Marie 
locked  away  Tosi's  checkered  Russian  blouse  and 
the  much-worn  bloomei*s,  and  told  the  child  that 
she  was,  after  all,  a  girl,  and  must  now  try  to  be- 
have as  other  little  girls  did.  Catd's  silent  grief  at 
[30] 


»  „  >:  ^     .    » 


'•,»/'  \  i ..»  •     • » *  • 


0^^»^   /y^<fy^^^^^^^c^ 


t-    »     t>   » 


THE  CHILD 

this  parental  compulsion,  which  irremediably  closed 
the  gates  of  her  boys'  paradise  to  her  and  thrust 
her  into  the  gray  limbo  of  girlhood,  must  have 
been  poignant  indeed,  for  even  in  mature  years 
she  remembered  this  experience  as  the  one  cruel 
blight  on  the  happiness  of  her  childhood. 

Things    might   have   gone    a   little    better    if 

'Tante"  R.,  sole  proprietor  and  faculty  of  the  new 

institution  for  the  development  of  feminine  Frisian 

intellect,  had  possessed  any  quality  that  could  have 

nspired  or  even  interested  her  pupil.  Tante,  or 

'Tan,"  to  be  sure,  was  quite  a  versatile  old  dame. 

She  could  not  merely  teach  the  "elements"  and  the 

catechism,  fancywork  and  French,  but  she  was  also 

able,  while  teaching,  to  cook  her  dinner  and  attend 

to  her  small-wares  store  at  every  bell-pull. 

Catd,  who  had  developed  no  liking  for  fancy- 
work,  and  hated  to  learn  the  French  poems  of  which 
she  did  not  understand  one  word,  considered  di- 
dactic and  dull  Tan  a  greater  bore  even  than 
crude  old  schoolmaster  Jansen.  She  began  to  invent 
excuses  for  staying  away  from  school,  or,  while 
there,  to  brew  mischief,  so  that  the  old  lady  soon 
became  afraid  of  her.  As  a  result,  she  not  only  re- 
frained from  putting  her  sharp  elbows  into  Catd's 
sides,  as  she  was  wont  to  do  with  the  other  lambs, 
[31] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

but  also  excused  her  from  class  whenever  Georg 
Regel  or  Geerd  Evers  was  cooing  outside  to  tempt 
her  to  roam  through  the  fields. 

After  a  prolonged  illness  Tan  had  to  give  up 
teaching  school,  and  so  it  came  about  that  the 
name  of  Wenckebach  one  day  figured  in  the  Han- 
nover Daily  under  an  advertisement  like  this: 
"Wanted,  for  four  girls  aged  nine,  seven,  five,  three 
respectively,  a  competent  governess.  Salary:  $75 
a  year  and  home."  "Competent"  governesses  were 
scarce  at  that  time,  because  Providence,  in  the 
shape  of  a  paternal  government,  had  not  as  yet 
found  it  expedient  to  provide  schools  for  the  train- 
ing of  women  teachers.  But  governesses  so-called 
there  were  in  plenty,  and  not  less  than  fifty-three 
applied  for  this  lucrative  position,  some  even  offer- 
ing their  services  gi'atis.  The  HeiT  Postmeister, 
overwhelmed  by  so  much  mail,  read  a  few  of  the 
letters  only,  and  then,  to  save  ftirther  trouble, 
engaged  the  fii*st  applicant,  hoping  that  he  might 
thus  draw  a  lucky  card.  But  luck  did  not  favor  him 
in  this  lottery,  and  never  did,  as  may  be  seen  from 
the  fact  that  during  the  seven  subsequent  years  he 
had  to  repeat  the  experiment  eight  times,  the  gov- 
ernesses thus  procured  being  but  "annuals"  at  best. 

The  children  seem  at  all  times  to  have  been  re- 
[32] 


THE  CHILD 

spectful  and  obedient,  though  not  over-zealous  at 
their  lessons,  which,  however,  they  studied  duti- 
fully in  spite  of  the  mechanical,  lifeless  methods  of 
their  instructors.  Tosi  alone  objected  to  being  bored, 
and  was  in  consequence  lazy,  inattentive,  and  at 
times  even  aggressively  annoying.  She  acquired  an 
astonishing  skill  in  the  dubious  art  of  reading  her 
lessons  from  the  text-book  that  lay  open  before  her 
teacher  across  the  table.  She  ruined  the  fine  old 
Dutch  clock  in  the  schoolroom  by  putting  its  hands 
forward  and  backward  before  and  after  lessons  to 
suit  her  pleasure.  She  hid  herself  and  the  children 
under  the  di*awbridge  over  the  dried-up  moat  to 
escape  the  ordeal  of  taking  a  walk — "a  senseless 
walk,  denk  nur  TnaV — with  the  unlucky  governess. 
When  kept  behind  locked  doors  after  lessons  she 
climbed  out  of  the  window,  vanishing  over  the  roof 
of  the  greenhouse  or  down  a  ladder  that  some  chiv- 
alrous soul  among  the  servants  held  for  her. 

The  other  children  eagerly  watched  these  esca- 
pades from  their  secure  hiding-place  under  the 
bridge,  and  never  breathed  a  word  of  what  they  saw 
to  a  soul  outside  their  "gang."  The  spirit  of  this 
gang  condemned  telltales  so  absolutely  and  merci- 
lessly that  even  the  "Miss  Nancy"  among  them 
was  frightened  into  holding  his  tattling  tongue. 
[33] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

But  in  any  case  they  would  not  have  told  on 
Tdsi,  their  special  hero, — Tosi  who  could  jump 
ditches  as  if  they  were  nothing;  who  smoked  up 
a  big  cigar  without  wincing;  who,  after  falling  into 
the  canal  in  cold  weather,  unflinchingly  let  her  wet 
clothes  dry  on  her  body;  who  boldly  climbed  high 
walls  and  trees  after  some  forbidden  fruit,  and, 
perched  high  above  her  less  daring  accomplices, 
could  eat  up  her  spoil  in  perfect  composure  before 
she  came  down  to  them  again.  That  she  occasion- 
ally cheated  the  "innocents,"  as  she  called  them, 
by  cunningly  making  them  swap  things  of  theirs 
which  she  wanted,  for  a  worthless  trifle  in  her  own 
possession,  did  not  decrease  their  admiration,  but 
merely  added  a  bit  of  awe  to  it.  Only  governess 
Number  One,  poor  soul,  raised  her  voice  in  con- 
demnation of  the  "  moral  depravity"  of  this  tom- 
boy. Before  she  left  she  implored  the  guileless  chil- 
dren to  beware  of  their  eldest  sister  who,  she  was 
sure,  would  some  day  come  to  a  bad  end. 


[34] 


VII 

THINGS  went  better  after  dull  and  fault-find- 
ing Number  One  had  left  in  sorrow  and  in- 
dignation, and  patient  though  ineffective  Number 
Two  had  succeeded  her.  The  spirit  of  defiance  and 
mischief,  having  nothing  special  to  nourish  it,  soon 
shriveled  up.  Interest  and  zest  for  work,  however, 
did  not  rise  in  its  stead.  The  gentle  little  ones,  to 
be  sure,  obediently  learned  the  lessons  doled  out  to 
them.  When  things  grew  too  intricate — when,  for 
instance,  they  had  to  memorize  from  Luther's  cate- 
chism how  they  should  "drown  in  them  the  old 
Adam"  (who,  they  knew  for  sure,  had  been  "good 
and  dead"  ever  so  long) — they  took  refuge  in  the 
garret.  Here,  with  knitted  brows  and  clinched  fists, 
waiting  for  inspiration,  they  would  take  turns  in 
sitting  on  the  huge  family  Bible  which  decorated 
the  floor  among  a  motley  surrounding  of  old  china, 
preserve  jars,  and  old  books. 

Tosi,  meanwhile,  followed  her  own  sweet  will 
in  regard  to  lessons.  Most  often  she  shirked  them 
entirely.  In  summer  the  attractions  outside  the 
schoolroom  were  innumerable ;  in  winter  the  skating 
on  the  canals,  a  favorite  sport  for  old  and  young  in 
Frisia,  lured  her  away.  Like  her  father,  who,  I  am 
[35] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

told,  took  his  last  long  skating  trip  when  he  was 
seventy- three,  she  could  spend  whole  days  on  the 
ice,  fascinated  by  the  sport  itself,  and  by  the  change 
it  wrought  in  the  men,  women,  and  children  around 
her.  The  East  Frisian  seems  to  thaw  out  when 
everything  about  him  is  frozen  stiff,  and  the  mo- 
ment he  gets  his  skates  on,  he  breaks  the  heavy 
crust  of  his  everyday  manner  to  change  once  more 
into  a  merry  and  reckless  old  Beowulfer.  Tosi  never 
missed  an  opportunity  to  be  a  link  in  the  formid- 
able living  chain  that  on  days  of  special  sport 
swept  down  the  canal  like  a  bristling  sea  serpent, 
and  after  hours  of  vigorous  skating  dismembered 
at  some  wayside  inn.  She  keenly  enjoyed  the  bra- 
cing exercise  and  the  yells  of  delight  that  accom- 
panied it,  and  with  intent  relish  she  did  her  gen- 
erous share  of  the  ensuing  consumption  of  savory 
Schinkenhutterbrot  (raw  ham  sandwiches)  and  de- 
licious Warmhier  (hot  ale  sweetened  with  syrup). 
That  Tosi,  in  spite  of  her  dislike  for  the  school- 
room and  her  utter  indifference  to  lessons,  was 
far  ahead  of  other  children  of  her  age  in  point 
of  thought  and  expression  may  be  gathered  from 
a  variety  of  childish  documents  which  a  strongly 
developed  family  pride  fortunately  has  preserved, 
together  with  the  toys  that  inspired  them.  Tosi's  fa- 
[36] 


THE  CHILD 

vorite  plaything,  after  the  period  of  guns  and  drums, 
of  fortresses  and  locomotives,  had  passed  was  a  sim- 
ple little  Noah's  ark  stored  with  the  plainest  kind 
of  wooden  animals.  These  she  not  only  individual- 
ized very  cleverly,  but  also  furnished  with  a  written 
and  sealed  constitution.  The  latter,  drawn  up  when 
she  was  ten  years  old,  is  monarchical  in  its  form, 
but  thoroughly  democratic  in  spirit.  The  lion  is 
the  ruler,  of  coui-se.  He  figures  as  "  His  most  serene 
Majesty  Milord  Pantalon  Welf,  Monarch  and  King 
over  the  Uplands,  over  Africa  and  America."  Among 
the  subjects,  there  is  a  Lord  Pig,  Gentleman;  a 
Prince  Panther,  First  Councilor;  a  Rector  Lynx  and 
a  Professor  Fox;  a  Teacher  Dog  and  a  Pastor  Mag- 
pie. Prominent  among  the  "laws"  are  such  as, — you 
shall  not  quarrel;  you  shall  teach  the  little  ones; 
you  shall  not  be  wasteful  or  miserly;  you  shaU  help 
the  suffering;  you  shall  not  abuse  the  prisoners  even 
in  times  of  war;  you  shall  not  despise  the  lowly. 
The  hardest  punishments  are  to  be  inflicted  on 
those  who  break  their  oaths,  for  "they  shall  be  ex- 
ecuted and  then  jeered  at;"  on  those  who  mock  the 
lowly,  for  "they  shaU  be  imprisoned  for  sixteen 
years;"  on  those  who  are  miserly,  for  "they  shall 
be  flogged  and  then  thrown  into  prison." 

For  a  long  time  these  animals  were  Tosi's  favorite 
[37] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

company,  especially  on  rainy  days  or  on  long  win- 
ter evenings.  While  the  "innocents"  amused  them- 
selves with  their  needlework  or  their  dolls,  Tosi 
sat  in  some  corner,  talking  to  the  "beasts"  with 
great  seriousness  and  in  an  uninterrupted  flow  of 
words.  She  herself  called  this  favorite  occupation 
her  Patem,  by  which  she  probably  meant  a  dis- 
coursing and  exhorting  after  the  manner  of  a.  Pater, 
i.  e.,  a  pastor.  The  themes  of  these  discourses,  which 
"His  Majesty  the  Lion"  generally  addressed  to  his 
dumb  subjects,  seem  to  have  been  historical,  politi- 
cal, and  ethical  in  content. 

Such  orations  must  have  been  very  interesting  to 
a  youthful  audience, — the  parents  evidently  never 
took  the  trouble  to  listen, — for  it  was  a  gala  day 
for  the  sisters  as  well  as  the  village  children  when- 
ever Tosi,  at  rare  intervals,  announced  her  willing- 
ness to  patem  in  public,  and  to  hold  what  she 
called  a  Postamentpredigt  (literally,  a  sermon  from 
a  pedestal).  Eagerly  the  little  tots,  who  knew  the 
wishes  of  their  commander-in-chief,  then  made 
the  necessary  preparations.  A  huge  wooden  foot- 
stool was  quickly  placed  in  the  warm  end  of  the 
large  room,  a  big  feather  duster  was  fastened  be- 
hind it  in  the  manner  of  a  baldachin,  and  in  fi-ont 
chairs  were  arranged  for  the  audience.  Not  until 
[38] 


THE  CHILD 

the  children  were  quietly  seated  did  Tosi  walk  in, 
ark  under  arm,  and  kneel  down  on  the  cushion  at 
the  foot  of  the  feather  baldachin.  After  placing  the 
representative  animals  on  the  footstool  in  front  of 
her,  she  took  one  among  them,  usually  the  lion, 
who  was  supposed  by  her  touch  to  change  into  an 
articulate  being.  Then,  with  the  air  of  a  professor, 
she  delivered  her  oration. 

By  degrees  all  the  sisters  caught  a  predilection 
for  this  kind  of  game.  On  winter  evenings  when  the 
whole  family  sat  around  the  large  oaken  table,  the 
father  comfortably  leaning  back  in  his  sofa  comer 
smoking  a  long  pipe  and  reading  the  Berlin  Daily, 
the  mother  sitting  ei-ect  by  his  side,  her  hands 
busy  with  knitting,  her  eyes  glancing  over  some 
illustrated  magazine  before  her,  there  would  grad- 
ually arise  a  buzzing,  bubbling  noise  of  four  or  five 
voices,  and  a  shoving  and  shuffling  from  as  many 
pairs  of  hands.  "I  do  not  understand  how  our  par- 
ents were  ever  able  to  concentrate  their  minds  on 
their  reading,"  Tosi,  grown  up,  would  say,  with 
an  expression  of  wonder  and  amusement,  forgetting 
that  the  marvelous  power  of  concentration  which 
she  herself  showed  in  later  life  was  probably  fostered 
by  conditions  like  these. 

When  Tosi  was  twelve  years  old  something  hap- 
[39] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

pened  that  put  a  sudden  and  final  stop  to  all  Paterei 
and  made  her  banish  Noah's  ark  to  the  sphere 
of  the  family  Bible.  This  epoch-making  event  was 
a  performance,  by  good  actors,  of  Schiller's  Die 
Rduher  in  the  ramshackle  theater  at  Emden.  Tosi 
witnessed  it  in  company  with  Claus  and  Georg,  who 
had  previously  tasted  of  the  intoxicating  draught 
of  the  theater.  But  this  performance  must  have 
been  a  unique  experience  for  them,  too,  inasmuch 
as  it  kindled  their  enthusiasm  and  imagination  to 
such  a  pitch  that,  on  coming  home,  they  immedi- 
ately set  to  work  to  write  a  drama  after  the  pat- 
tern of  Schiller's  volcanic  production.  This  rather 
bloody  piece  was  then  acted  before  a  breathless  au- 
dience of  children  and  householders,  the  chorus  of 
"innocents"  being  used  for  the  purpose  of  some 
extra  slaughtering. 

When  cousin  Georg  went  home  this  time,  he 
did  not,  as  he  had  done  before,  leave  Tosi  some 
such  thing  as  an  ingeniously  devised  trap  for  catch- 
ing birds,  or  some  home-made  apparatus  for  mix- 
ing chemicals,  but  he  made  her  a  complete  puppet 
theater,  and  this,  from  now  on,  took  the  place  of 
the  ark. 

Meanwhile,  Auguste  Alfeis,  being  near  enough 
for  occasional  visits  and  watching  the  progress  that 
[40] 


THE  CHILD 

Tosi's  mind  was  making,  had  tried  to  persuade  the 
parents  that  it  was  their  duty  to  send  this  clever 
child  of  theirs  to  a  good  school.  It  was  not  easy  to 
make  Frau  Marie  see  the  necessity  for  such  an 
"emancipated"  step,  for  she  herself  had  hardly 
leaiTied  to  spell  correctly  before  she  left  school,  and 
yet  felt  herself  to  be  quite  a  useful  member  of  so- 
ciety. But  she  finally  yielded  to  her  progressive 
husband. 

So  it  happened  that,  much  to  the  distress  of 
everybody  except  the  governess,  then  Number  Four, 
Tosi  was  sent  to  school  in  Hildesheim,  where  her 
brother  and  cousin  also  were  studying. 


[41] 


PART  II 
THE  SCHOOLGIRL 


Oh,  the  dear,  peaceful  schoobooms,  the 
spiritual  home  of  golden  years  of  youth ! 


VIII 

IN  selecting  Hildesheim  as  the  proper  place 
for  their  daughter's  "higher  education,"  Tosi's 
parents  had  been  influenced  by  sentiment  and  con- 
venience alike.  This  little  city  was  the  one  spot  out- 
side East  Frisia  to  which  they  were  attached  both 
by  cherished  memories  of  the  past  and  by  much 
prized  connections  with  the  present.  The  mother 
of  cousin  Georg,  a  younger  sister  of  the  Herr 
Postmeister,  lived  here,  and  being  the  wife  of  a 
poorly  paid,  though  distinguished  schoolmaster,  was 
doubly  glad  to  care  for  her  brother''s  children  along 
with  her  own  lively  brood.  Her  husband,  a  Thu- 
ringian,  the  Rector  of  the  Hildesheim  Gymnasium 
for  boys,  had  frequently  been  a  guest  in  Upgant, 
and,  by  his  sound  learning  and  his  genial  good  hu- 
mor, had  won  the  silent  respect  and  affection  of  his 
undemonstrative  Frisian  relatives.  His  enthusiastic, 
impulsive  manner  and  his  lover-like  adoration  of 
his  beautiful  if  impassive  housewife  were  accepted 
good-naturedly  as  unavoidable  and  rather  amusing 
eccentricities  of  the  South  German  temperament. 
It  was  indeed  a  piece  of  great  good  fortune  that 
Tdsi  could  be  a  member  of  this  simple,  frugal  house- 
hold, whose  commanding  center  was  a  man  so  in- 
[45] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

tellectual,  sympathetic,  and  music-loving  as  Uncle 
Kegel.  Of  far  greater  importance  for  her  develop- 
ment, however,  was  the  fact  that  this  household 
happened  to  be  in  ancient  Hildesheim,  where  all 
conditions  combined  to  create  an  ideal  atmos- 
phere for  the  education  of  children.  So  captivated 
was  Tosi  by  the  beauty  of  this  unknown  world  in 
which  she  found  herself,  and  by  the  engrossing 
interest  of  her  new  life,  that  she  forgot  to  be  at  all 
homesick.  Her  home  letters,  however,  give  but  little 
idea  of  the  enthusiasm  and  joy  of  living  which, 
according  to  the  reports  of  school  friends,  animated 
her  whole  being  from  the  beginning  to  the  end  of 
her  four  years'  stay  in  Hildesheim. 

The  lovely  surroundings  of  the  city  of  Bemward 
aroused  Tosi's  keenest  delight  even  before  the  his- 
toric charm  of  her  new  environments  had  mastered 
her.  This  child  of  the  plains  never  cared  much  for 
the  unbroken  horizon  lines  of  her  Northern  home, 
but  always  longed  for  the  dramatic  contours  of 
mountain  and  valley.  The  "mountains"  around 
Hildesheim — the  first  she  had  ever  consciously  be- 
held— were  modest  enough ;  but  no  Alpine  climber 
reaching  the  top  of  the  Jungfrau  could  have  felt 
more  elated  and  expanded  than  did  the  puffing 
Northern  girl,  when  for  the  first  time  she  looked 
[46] 


THE  SCHOOLGIRL 

down  on  her  birthplace  and  as  far  away  as  Han- 
nover from  the  top  of  the  Galgenberg,  a  hill  to  the 
north  of  the  city,  that  rises  to  the  actual  height  of 
four  hundred  and  sixty  feet. 

Uncle  Regel  was  a  devoted  lover  of  nature,  and 
every  Sunday,  like  true  Germans,  he  and  his  fam- 
ily shouldered  their  knapsacks  and  migrated  to 
the  wooded  hills  near  the  city, — to  the  Wohlden- 
berg  with  its  mediaeval  castle  ruins  and  its  gaunt 
fortress  tower,  from  which  aged  King  Brocken  could 
be  seen  among  his  vassals,  the  Harzmountains ;  to 
the  romantic  Bodensteinklippen  and  the  venerable 
chapel  that,  a  thousand  years  ago,  monks  had  hewn 
out  of  the  hard  rocks;  to  the  Moritzberg,  from 
which  a  Frisian,  Benno,  was  said  to  have  ruled  old 
Bennopolis  and  its  stanch  Saxon  inhabitants  be- 
fore the  time  of  Charlemagne  and  his  bishops. 

Tosi's  boon  companion  outside  of  school  hours 
was  her  old  playmate,  Georg  Regel.  He  was  eager 
to  take  her  to  see  the  show  places  of  Hildesheim, 
and  he  never  tired  of  telling  her  of  the  great  men 
and  events  that  had  shaped  the  glorious  history 
of  this  "Nuremberg  of  the  North."  In  her  East 
Frisian  home  there  had  been  few  conspicuous  links 
with  the  past, — an  old  Wasserhv/rg  in  the  neigh- 
borhood, the  ruin  of  an  ancient  church  tower 
[47] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

changed  by  pirates  into  a  safe  robbers'  retreat,  and 
some  old  family  chronicles  and  bits  of  antique  furni- 
ture in  possession  of  the  Wenckebachs.  But  in  sober 
East  Frisia  no  golden  legend  had  been  spun  about 
these  relics,  and  no  human  interest  was  attached  to 
them.  And  so  they  had  quite  failed  to  stir  Tosi's 
imagination  or  to  awaken  her  naturally  strong  his- 
toric sense.  Here  in  Hildesheim,  on  the  contrary, 
stick  and  stone  were  aglow  with  legendary  lore  re- 
vealing the  shapes  of  Odin  and  the  Virgin  Mary, 
of  great  kings  and  saints,  of  giants,  dwarfs,  and  dev- 
ils,— all  actors  in  the  drama  of  Hildesia's  destiny. 
"The  venerable  rosebush  in  the  cloistered  court 
of  the  cathedral  told  of  Louis  the  Pious  and  the 
founding  of  the  bishopric  of  Hildesheim  during  the 
ninth  century.  The  cathedral  itself,  with  its  bronze 
works  of  art,  proclaimed  the  genius  of  the  artist 
bishop,  Bernward  (993-1022),  under  whose  foster- 
ing care  the  city  had  become  one  of  the  most  sig- 
nificant seats  of  German  Romanesque  art."  The 
ramparts,  changed  into  shaded  walks;  the  moats, 
metamorphosed  into  parks;  the  ivy-grown  frag- 
ments of  the  old  fortress  wall, — all  bore  constant 
witness  to  the  times  when  Holy  Church  took  up 
the  sword  against  her  enemy,  the  State. 

With  the  full  enthusiasm  of  her  nature  Tosi  en- 
[48] 


THE  SCHOOLGIRL 

tered  into  the  atmosphere  of  history  and  tradition 
about  her.  Every  day  on  her  way  to  school  she 
walked  across  the  market  place,  with  its  splendid 
town  hall,  its  Roland  statue,  and  its  swarming  life 
of  buyers  and  sellers  of  old  Saxon  descent,  and  by 
such  jewels  of  fourteenth  and  sixteenth  century 
architecture  as  the  Templar  House  and  the  Knoch- 
enhaueramtshatis.*  The  latter,  the  finest  timber 
building  in  Germany,  together  with  hundreds  of 
gabled  structures  of  like  character  which  the  pride 
of  the  citizens  keeps  in  perfect  trim,  give  Hildes- 
heim  its  peculiar  air  of  quaint  and  healthy  old 
age.  Although  the  gay  picturesqueness  of  the 
streets,  the  fine  carving  on  the  buildings,  the  merry 
companionship  of  line  and  color,  made  but  a  vague 
stage  impression  on  Tosi,  a  girl  with  little  or  no 
appreciation  for  the  purely  artistic,  the  facades, 
decorated  with  rich  carvings  of  sixteenth  century 
life,  of  Greek  and  Christian  mythology,  excited  her 
interest  and  curiosity  from  the  first.  The  house 
mottoes  especially,  pithy  bits  of  sixteenth  century 
humor  and  common  sense,  struck  a  sympathetic 
chord  in  the  young  Frisian.  "A  house  without  a 
motto,"  said  the  Hildesheim  burghers  of  old,  "is 
like  an  egg  without  salt,"  and  then  proceeded  to 

*  An  ancient  iruild  house  of  the  butchers. 

[49] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

flavor  their  habitations  with  spicy  inscriptions, 

such  as: 

"  Surly  fellow,  go  your  way." 
"Ego  vero  haud  mordeor"  (/  have  a  thick  skin), 
"Let  him  who  builds  his  house  upon  a  public  way 
Care  not  a  whiff  for  what  the  world  may  say." 

When  Tosi  had  been  in  Hildesheim  a  year  some- 
thing happened  which  gave  the  city  a  new  luster 
for  historians  and  lovers  of  art,  and  incidentally 
did  much  to  make  history  anschaulkh  (vivid)  to 
imaginative  children  such  as  Catd  Wenckebach. 
As  she  was  on  her  way  to  school  one  morning,  she 
saw  a  small  company  of  soldiers  trundling  three 
heavy  wheelbarrows  across  the  narrow  streets  to 
the  ban-acks.  Eagerly  joining  the  troop  of  curious 
children  that  followed  on  behind,  Tosi  heard  that 
a  quantity  of  strangely  shaped  old  iron  had  been 
unearthed  axicidentally  at  the  foot  of  the  Galgen- 
berg.  "The  dingy,  rusty  metal  had  such  a  savor 
of  antiquity  about  it,"  she  used  to  say,  "that  we 
children  imagined  all  manner  of  romantic  stories 
connected  with  it,  and  plagued  the  men  at  the 
barracks  with  questions  at  all  times  of  the  day. 
Imagine  our  excitement  when  it  was  discovered 
that  our  'old  iron'  was  nothing  less  than  the  mag- 
nificent silver  table  service  of  a  Roman  general! 
[50] 


THE  SCHOOLGIRL 

We  felt  that  we  had  been  instrumental  in  restor- 
ing the  relics,  and  consequently  enjoyed  all  the  pride 
of  ownership."  Tosi,  in  later  years,  remembered  this 
incident  with  such  keen  pleasure  that  she  took 
every  opportunity  to  see  the  richly  decorated  ves- 
sels (now  in  the  Berlin  Museum)  "that  give  us  such 
a  vivid  picture  of  the  customs  and  habits  of  the 
aristocratic  Romans  of  the  first  empire." 

But  History,  which  from  now  on  was  to  be  one 
of  Tosi's  favorites  among  the  Muses,  did  not  speak 
to  her  through  the  past  only.  The  present,  too,  was 
charged  with  the  rarest  historic  interest.  It  was 
the  time  when  Bismarck,  the  colossus,  stepped  forth 
with  his  project  of  a  new  federation  of  German 
states  under  the  leadership  of  Prussia;  when  inter- 
fering and  intriguing  Austria  was  thrown  out  of 
the  confederacy,  and  her  German  allies — Hessia, 
Saxony,  Hannover — were  forced  to  surrender  by 
the  victorious  armies  of  Prussia;  when  the  blind 
king  of  Hannover,  luckless  George  V,  the  last 
crowned  head  of  the  proud  Guelphs,  was  dethroned, 
and  his  kingdom,  including  the  provinces  of  East 
Frisia  and  Hildesheim,  was  annexed  by  the  stal- 
wart "upstart"  among  the  German  states. 

For  the  East  Frisians,  as  well  as  for  most  of  the 
inhabitants  of  Hildesheim,  these  events,  especially 
[51] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

those  of  the  year  1866,  were  a  source  of  satisfac- 
tion rather  than  regret.  Neither  of  these  provinces 
had  prospered  under  the  loose  but  reactionary  rule 
of  Hannover,  as  they  had  in  times  past  under  the 
watchful  eye  of  the  Prussian  Eagle. 

All  this,  however,  did  not  prevent  the  young 
people  of  Hildesheim  from  letting  their  emotions 
surge  high  in  favor  of  the  "wronged"  king.  Tosi 
and  her  brother  were  among  the  hottest  of  the 
Guelphs.  While  aristocratic  Claus  naturally  sided 
with  the  nobles,  the  privileged  class  under  Han- 
noverian  rule,  Tosi,  the  democrat,  felt  that  she  was 
bound  to  the  house  of  Hannover  by  all  the  ties  of 
loyalty.  The  absurdities  into  which  a  short-lived 
hatred  of  Prussia  provoked  the  youthful  Hildeshei- 
mers — defiant  paradings  of  Hannover  colors,  muf- 
fled shouts  of  "Kuckuck*"  aimed  at  Prussian  officers 
— were  a  gleeful  remembrance  to  Tosi  in  after  years. 

Thus  Hildesheim,  past  and  present,  stimulated 
Tosi's  fresh,  open  mind.  In  a  short  time,  and  without 
any  trouble,  the  ignorant  country  girl  had  gath- 
ered a  rich  harvest  oi  Anschauung  and  information 
such  as  no  schoolroom  could  have  yielded.  And 
yet  it  was  the  schoolroom  in  Hildesheim,  and  the  in- 
fluences she  met  there,  which  not  only  shaped  her 
career,  but  also  did  much  to  develop  her  character. 
[52] 


IX 

"  T  LIKE  going  to  school  very  much,"  Tosi  wrote 
X  in  her  first  letter  home;  "things  are  neither 
too  easy  nor  too  hard  for  me,  and  so  the  grade  in 
which  I  am  just  suits  me."  Not  a  word  did  young 
reticence  say  about  the  many  difficulties  and  cha- 
grins that  beset  her  during  this  initial  stage  of  her 
school  days  in  Hildesheim.  The  rusticity  of  Tosi's 
manners,  ridiculed  by  her  new  companions,  and,  more 
humiliating  still,  the  rank  ignorance  disclosed  in  her 
entrance  examinations,  must  have  been  melancholy 
revelations  to  her.  For  at  home  the  sovereignty  of 
her  mind  had  never  been  questioned,  not  even  by 
boys  older  then  herself,  and  her  oddities  had  but 
added  luster  to  her  respected  person.  Being  found 
most  deficient  in  the  "elements,"  such  as  arith- 
metic, geography,  Handarheiten  (sewing,  darning, 
knitting,  etc.),  she  was  put  into  a  class  with  pupils 
who  were  considerably  her  juniors.  And  even  here 
she  often  stumbled  woefully  where  the  youngsters 
about  her  could  glide  smoothly.  When  she  recited 
her  first  French  lesson,  pronouncing  the  words  as 
old  Tan  had  taught  her  to  do,  she  roused  such  a 
volley  of  laughter  that  even  the  masterful  teacher, 

[53] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

the  object  of  Tosi's  ardent  adoration,  was  carried 
away  by  it.  Indeed  there  was  a  suppressed  titter 
around  her  whenever  she  recited  anything,  until  the 
broad  Frisian  dialect,  which  the  distinct  enuncia- 
tion insisted  upon  in  every  German  class-room  made 
all  the  more  marked,  had  lost  its  pristine  freshness 
in  contact  with  the  conventional  and  correct  Ger- 
man of  Hannover.  She  also  roused  hilarity  by  the 
naive  way  in  which  she  would  acquiesce  with  an 
eager,  deeply  guttural  Gut!  when  lessons  were  as- 
signed, and  by  the  whole-heartedness  with  which 
she  blew  her  nose, — often  stopping  the  work  of  the 
class  while  she  was  thus  energetically  trumpeting. 
There  was,  moreover,  something  in  the  very  ap- 
pearance of  the  little  square  figure  that  caused 
merriment, — whether  one  looked  at  her  hair,  which 
was  combed  back  uncompromisingly  from  a  full 
round  forehead  and  bristled  under  the  threefold 
bondage  of  comb,  net,  and  ribbon,  or  at  her  plump 
feet  encased  in  boots  and  stockings  such  as  might 
defy  fire  and  water.  Add  to  this  a  dress  of  gay 
Scotch  plaid  that  showed  the  original  combination 
of  hoopskirt  and  Mother  Hubbard  waist;  long  ear- 
rings that  dangled  down  absurdly  from  her  strong 
ear  lobes ;  a  huge  silver  watch  carried  on  a  bright 
chain  of  enormous  strength, — and  it  is  easy  to  see 
[54] 


THE  SCHOOLGIRL 

why  young  people  snickered  and  older  people  smiled 
whenever  they  looked  at  her. 

Catd  was  proof  enough  against  ridicule,  however, 
for  she  had  what  is  a  true  gift  of  the  gods  and  a 
rare  accomplishment  in  this  heavy  world  of  ours, 
— the  capacity  to  take  herself  as  a  good  joke  occa- 
sionally, and  to  laugh  over  her  own  blunders.  By 
joining  heartily  in  the  mirth  that  her  mistakes  and 
eccentricities  aroused,  she  not  only  stopped  derision, 
but  earned  general  approval  and  admiration. 

The  fight  with  her  ignorance  and  her  mental  idio- 
syncrasies was  a  much  harder  task,  for  she  found 
it  exceedingly  distasteful  to  apply  herself  to  much 
detested  studies  such  as  arithmetic,  English,  and 
sewing.  But  her  strong  will,  helped  by  a  great  en- 
thusiasm for  work  that  had  suddenly  entered  her 
whole  being,  conquered  every  difficulty.  Studying 
with  all  her  might  from  morning  till  evening,  she 
was  soon  promoted,  and  before  long  could  join  the 
class  where,  according  to  her  age,  she  properly  be- 
longed. Here,  without  ever  consciously  striving  for 
power,  she  forthwith  fell  into  her  natural  position 
of  leader,  which  she  never  forfeited  during  the  rest 
of  her  school  career. 

There  was  nothing  sentimental  or  morbid  in  the 
Catd  cult  that  ensued.  What  bound  all  her  school- 
[55] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

mates  to  her  in  unfaltering  loyalty  was  a  healthy, 
whole-hearted  admiration  of  the  large,  honest  mind 
and  the  vigorous,  independent,  unconventional  per- 
sonality of  the  Frisian  girl.  Every  day  after  school 
a  number  of  her  devotees  walked  the  two  miles  home 
with  her  in  order  to  enjoy  her  company  and  carry 
her  books,  and  some  of  them  even  attended  upon 
her  pleasure  as  early  as  half  past  seven  in  the  morn- 
ing, when  she  stepped  out  of  the  house  to  go  to 
school.  The  high  office  of  book -bearer,  with  the  priv- 
ilege of  a  walk  at  her  side,  was  allotted  every  week 
so  judiciously  by  Catd  herself  that  feuds  occurred 
but  rarely  among  her  vassals.  The  girls  also  sewed 
for  her — covertly,  of  course — inside  and  outside 
the  schoolroom,  and  in  the  end  made  it  possible 
for  her  to  finish  the  man's  shirt,  the  woman's  che- 
mise, and  the  sampler  required  from  her  by  the 
government  before  her  graduation. 

In  return  Catd  helped  the  little  housewives  of 
the  future  out  of  their  special  difficulties.  When  the 
class  was  given  a  theme  for  composition  and  did 
not  know  how  to  tackle  it, — as  seems  frequently 
to  have  been  the  case, — they  went  to  Catd  for  help, 
since  she  was  especially  strong  and  eager  in  that 
line  of  work.  She  would  then  go  with  them  to  the 
top  staircase  of  the  old  schoolhouse  and,  framed  in 
[56] 


THE  SCHOOLGIRL 

by  the  door  of  the  attic,  with  her  followers  on  the 
steps  below,  she  would  explain  things.  "So  simple, 
logical,  and  graphic  was  her  manner  of  presenta- 
tion," says  one  of  her  schoolmates,  "that  every  girl 
understood,  and  after  Catd's  talk  was  able  to  treat 
the  subject  in  her  own  way." 

From  this  one  would  expect  to  hear  that  Catd's 
own  composition  work  was  of  a  superior  order. 
Curiously  enough,  to  judge  from  the  marks  on  her 
quarterly  certificates,  this  does  not  seem  to  have 
been  the  case.  According  to  these  she  was  marked 
"superior"  in  gymnastics,  music,  nature  studies, 
French,  drawing,  and  in  all  the  histories,  Biblical, 
literary,  universal;  but  she  attained  only  a  "very 
good"  in  composition,  arithmetic,  and  geography, 
while  in  Handarheiten  she  never  rose  above  the 
passing  level.  What  it  was  that,  in  spite  of  her 
rare  gift  of  exposition  and  her  unusually  good 
handling  of  the  spoken  word,  prevented  her  from 
attaining  to  the  longed-for  excellence  in  her  writ- 
ten productions  may  be  suspected  from  a  glance 
at  the  letters  she  wrote  home  during  her  stay  at 
Hildesheim.  There  are  as  many  as  twelve  a  year, 
but  never  more,  and  they  are  on  the  whole  what 
Catd  herself  later  on  would  have  called  "police  re- 
ports,"— brief,  unadorned  enumerations  of  the  im- 
[57] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

portant  events  in  her  life,  which  consisted  of  much 
work  and  little  play.  At  rare  intervals,  at  Christ- 
mas, for  instance,  or  on  her  parents'  birthday,  when 
she  expressed  feeling,  she  did  it  in  a  way  that 
probably  illustrates  the  high  style  she  used  in  com- 
position. "Beloved  parents,"  she  wrote  when  she 
was  about  fourteen;  "pray  accept  my  most  soul-felt 
congratulations  for  Your  impending  birthday.  May 
our  kind  Heavenly  Father  give  You  much  enduring 
health  and  joy,  by  which  gracious  gifts  the  happi- 
ness of  Your  children  wiU  be  insured.  While  last 
year,  when  we  celebrated  this  joyful  day  as  of  yore, 
I  could  be  in  Your  midst,  and  could  fold  You  in 
my  warm  embrace,  and  could  personally  tender  my 
sincerest  congratulations  to  You,  this  year,  alas,  I 
am  but  granted  the  pleasure  of  imagining  myself 
amongst  You,  and  of  viewing  the  happy  event  from 
a  sorrowful  distance."  After  this  flowery  web  of 
words  we  easily  believe  what  she  says  in  the  same 
letter, — that  for  her  the  writing  of  a  composition 
on  Marie  Antoinette's  last  hours,  accomplished  the 
week  before,  was  mere  child's  play  in  comparison 
to  the  description  just  finished  of  a  horse  and  a 
donkey,  which  she  found  "an  extremely  difficult 
subject  to  handle." 

She  was  never  afraid,  however,  of  difficulties  she 
[58] 


THE  SCHOOLGIRL 

encountered  on  fields  of  work  in  which  she  liked  to 
linger.  "I  have  a  number  of  hard  tasks  before  me," 
she  continues,  "but  I  don't  mind,  for  the  more  I 
live  in  my  work,  the  more  content  and  even  happy 
I  feel;  and  happiness,  after  all,  is  the  most  impor- 
tant thing  in  life"  (August,  1869). 

The  young  hedonist  had  been  in  Hildesheim 
scarcely  a  year  when  she  decided  that  she  would  be 
a  teacher, — a  teacher  not  after  the  pattern  of  the 
governesses  at  home,  but  one  like  Fraulein  Michel- 
sen,  her  instructor  in  French  and  literature.  This 
young  woman  of  refinement  and  culture  was  the 
first  in  the  succession  of  good  fairies  that  were  to 
touch  Tosi's  personality  with  their  wand  of  wo- 
manly charm,  mellowing  what  was  raw  and  rough 
in  her.  It  was  Fraulein  Michelsen,  no  doubt,  who 
unwittingly  stimulated  her  young  admirer  to  this 
early  choice  of  a  profession,  although  Tosi,  in  de- 
liberately and  conscientiously  deciding  upon  her 
future  career,  really  followed  but  her  own  truest 
instincts.  It  is  quite  touching  to  see  how  Tosi,  the 
tomboy  of  old,  receives  the  news  that  her  parents 
have  granted  her  Christmas  wish — the  only  one 
expressed  that  year — to  be  allowed  to  become  a 
teacher.  "  How  happy  I  am," she  wrote,  "that  now  I 
may  carry  out  this  earnest  purpose  of  mine  with 
[59] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

your  consent !  I  shall  try  to  show  myself  worthy  of 
your  goodness  to  me,  and  to  give  you  and  my  dear 
teachers  satisfaction  by  sedulously  applying  myself 
to  my  studies.'* 

Among  her  Hildesheim  friends,  young  and  old, 
this  decision  of  hers  created  no  small  surprise.  That 
the  daughter  of  a  well-to-do  landed  proprietor,  who 
was  sure  to  find  a  husband  some  day,  should  choose 
to  become  an  underpaid  teacher  or  a  mere  govern- 
ess at  best — what  eccentricity!  But  self-sustained 
Catd  went  her  own  way  calmly  and  cheerfully, 
working  with  doubled  zeal  now  that  she  had  to 
carry  out  a  serious  purpose  in  life,  and  playing  with 
a  buoyant  spirit  whenever  play  came  her  way. 

So,  carried  along  on  the  steady  flood  of  her  en- 
thusiasm for  work,  and  basking  in  the  sunshine  of 
her  own  good  will  toward  men  as  well  as  in  the 
warmth  of  general  friendliness  about  her,  Catd  en- 
joyed, as  she  herself  said,  the  happiest  life  that 
ever  fell  to  the  lot  of  a  schoolgirl. 


[60] 


A  NATURE  such  as  Tosi's  was  bound  to  find  a 
.  "savor  of  festivity"  in  all  life  could  yield.  For 
hers  were  gifts  such  as  raise  us  above  the  common- 
placeness  of  everyday  existence, — a  temperamen- 
tal imperviousness  to  unessentials,  and  a  wholesome 
self-love  dignified  by  an  early  developed  steadiness 
of  purpose.  These,  her  natural  weapons,  made  her 
invulnerable  to  the  thousand  and  one  cares  on  which 
the  average  German  girl — self-effacing,  tender, 
proper,  as  centuries  of  tradition  have  made  her — 
dissipates  her  energies.  Catd  never  wailed  when  she 
tore  or  soiled  her  clothes  (a  frequent  occurrence), 
but  she  appealingly  paraded  the  holes  and  spots 
until  some  kind  soul  took  pity  on  them;  or  she 
covered  them  up,  wearing  Mother  Hubbard  aprons 
in  summer  and  a  charitable  big  woolen  shawl  in 
winter.  Hoops  that  insisted  on  peeping  through  her 
skirt  she  pulled  out  mercilessly,  reducing  the  puffed- 
up  garment  to  a  sorry  bag.  Catd's  second  foster 
mother,  a  thrifty  Frau  Postdirector,  with  whom 
she  boarded  after  her  uncle  had  been  promoted  to 
the  directorship  of  the  Hamlin  Gymnasium,  felt 
more  aggressively  responsible  for  the  girl's  appear- 
ance than  good  Aunt  Regel  had  done.  Her  frequent 
[61  ] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

remonstrances  withTosi  for  not  taking  an  umbrella 
to  protect  her  "beautiful  new  hat"  whenever  a 
shower  was  threatening,  were  quietly  met  by  the 
purchase  of  a  sailor  hat  covered  with  black  oilcloth. 
That  hat,  Tosi  found,  neither  rain  nor  shine  could 
injure,  and  henceforth  it  became  a  regular  part  of 
her  ideal  outfit.  With  what  decision  she  treated  her 
heavy  braids,  which  she  could  never  do  up  properly, 
and  which  therefore  caused  the  people  about  her  to 
indulge  in  corrective  comments,  may  be  seen  from 
a  passage  in  one  of  her  home  lettei*s.  "  By  the  way, 
I  wear  my  hair  short  now,"  she  wrote;  "got  rid  of 
braids,  hairpins,  and  appendages  six  months  ago; 
feel  very  free  and  light  without  them.  My  friends 
wail  about  the  loss  of  my  'beautiful  thick  hair;' 
but  what  is  the  use  of  beauty,  if  it  causes  continual 
annoyance?" 

Most  of  the  people  about  her  were  far  from 
resenting  these  oddities  of  the  kind-heai-ted,  jolly 
girl,  whose  harmonious  wholeness  of  nature  seems 
to  have  disarmed  criticism,  as  all  wholeness  is  apt 
to  do  in  our  modem  world  of  incongruities  and  dis- 
cords. Whenever  meddlesome  and  nagging  disposi- 
tions insisted  on  rubbing  against  her,  she  put  out 
her  "quills,"  as  she  used  to  call  her  ability  to  ward 
off  interference  by  entire  indifference  and  cool  com- 
[62] 


THE  SCHOOLGIRL 

posure.  Her  new  landlord,  for  instance,  one  of  those 
grum  family  tyrants  the  Fatherland  grows  so  plenti- 
fully, soon  learned  to  keep  his  hands  off  this  prickly 
piece  of  Northern  independence.  Feeling  called  up- 
on to  superintend  her  private  expenses,  he  had  bick- 
ered with  her  as  he  did  with  his  long-suffering  kin. 
After  listening  politely  to  the  vituperations  of  the 
choleric  man,  Tosi  at  once  wrote  to  her  parents, 
and  without  so  much  as  mentioning  the  harangues 
that  annoyed  her,  she  suggested  to  her  father  the 
educational  advantages  of  letting  her  be  her  own 
treasurer.  The  request  was  granted,  and  peace  en- 
sued. 

Reports  of  unconventionalities,  of  appearances 
neglected,  of  calls  unpaid,  reached  her  parents 
through  her  brother  Glaus,  who  by  this  time  had 
developed  a  most  painful  con*ectness  in  manner  and 
taste,  and  who  felt  called  upon  to  watch  over  the 
honor  of  the  house  of  Wenckebach.  One  of  his 
charges  against  his  "hoidenish*"  sister  produced  the 
only  letter  of  rebuke  that  the  Hen*  Postmeister  ever 
wrote  to  his  eldest  daughter.  And  this  is  the  way 
in  which  the  fifteen-year-old  girl  answered  it : 

"I  CANNOT  tell  you  how  grieved  I  am  to  see  myself 
censured  by  you  on  account  of  my  lack  of  attention 

[63] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

to  the  G s,  which,  you  say,  makes  them  sup- 
pose that  my  affection  for  them  has  decreased.  I  did 
not  call  on  them  simply  because  they  live  so  far 
away  and  I  have  not  been  able  to  spare  the  time. 
Appearances,  I  grant,  were  against  me ;  but  why  do 
people,  bound  together  by  close  ties  of  friendship 
as  we  are,  judge  one  another  by  appearances.?  If 
I  wanted  to,  I  could  accuse  them  of  indifference  as 
well.  That  Claus  wrote  to  you  about  this  without 
first  informing  me  of  it  is  extremely  annoying  to 
me.  I  expect,  yes,  I  can  demand,  that  everybody  who 
has  anything  against  me  will  let  me  know  of  it 
personally  instead  of  informing  me  through  a  third 
person.  Please  understand  that  I  am  not  angry  with 
Claus,  for  he  may  have  meant  well.  I  simply  wish 
to  justify  myself.  Your  obedient  daughter, 

"Cato  Wenckebach." 

Long-suffering  as  she  had  to  be,  and  was  willing 
to  be,  in  all  matters  concerning  the  young  "lord," 
her  elder  brother,  she  yet  held  her  own  against  his 
"lording  it"  as  none  of  her  sisters,  or  even  her  par- 
ents, ever  did.  A  characteristic  little  episode,  illus- 
trative of  the  different  nature  of  brother  and  sister, 
is  told  by  a  schoolmate  of  Tosi's.  Claus,  she  re- 
counts, who  usually  honored  his  sister  with  a  call 

[64] 


THE  SCHOOLGIRL 

on  Sundays,  came  in  on  a  week  day  to  tell  Tosi 
that  her  JuU  name — his  family  name — was  carved 
on  a  bench  in  the  park.  "Oh,  where?"  Tosi  shouted, 
reaching  eagerly  for  her  hat.  "Of  course  it  is  there 
no  longer,"  Glaus  answered  with  much  dignity. 
"Why,  what's  happened  to  it?"  Tosi  asked,  disap- 
pointed. And  when  she  heard  that  Claus  had  re- 
moved all  traces  of  it  as  soon  as  he  had  seen  it,  she 
snapped  an  angry  "Mind  your  own  business  next 
time"  at  the  ruffled  youth. 

What  romantic  soul  it  was  that  had  thus  tried 
to  perpetuate  Catd's  name,  history  does  not  record. 
It  may  have  been  the  mysterious  young  man  who 
afterwards  proposed  to  her.  Dame  Gossip  tells  that 
he  was  a  post-official  and  that  they  met  at  dancing 
lessons.  But  we  are  glad,  in  any  case,  to  hear  that 
studious  Catd  was  woman  enough  to  enjoy  the  at- 
tention offered — at  a  safe  distance — by  an  infat- 
uated youth,  and  furthermore  that  she  keenly  rel- 
ished the  rhythmic  motion  of  dancing,  in  which 
she  indulged  vigorously  whenever  opportunity  of- 
fered. Since  her  school  was  in  session  every  week 
day  from  eight  to  twelve  and  from  two  to  four,  and 
home  studies,  inclusive  of  piano  practice,  occupied 
about  five  hours  more  of  her  time  daily,  pleasures 
like  dancing  parties,  concerts,  visits  to  the  Hannover 
[65] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

Court  Theater,  could  only  be  enjoyed  during  the 
small  hours  of  the  night  or  on  Sundays.  "Last  Mon- 
day I  helped  celebrate  the  J s'  silver  wedding," 

she  wrote  home  in  1868.  "At  noon  I  consented  to 
go  to  the  ball  that  was  given  in  honor  of  the  oc- 
casion (was  n''t  it  fortunate,  though,  that  my  dress 
happened  to  be  in  trim.?);  then  I  went  to  school 
for  two  hours.  After  that  I  had  a  splendid  time 
dancing  until  five  next  morning.  At  eight,  after  I 
had  enjoyed  a  two  hours'  nap  on  the  sofa,  I  went 
to  school,  where  my  teachers  congratulated  me  on 
my  taking  pleasure  in  frivolities  such  as  balls."  Catd 
must  have  been  a  striking  figure  at  these  festive 
gatherings,  for  even  at  that  time  people  who  met 
her  cari'ied  away  a  vivid  remembrance  of  her  per- 
sonality. From  a  description  that  some  friend  gives 
of  her  appearance  at  one  of  these  dancing  parties 
it  may  be  gathered  that  on  these  occasions  Catd 
thoroughly  indulged  her  primitive  craving  for  wear- 
ing very  bright  and  often  clashing  colors, — a  crav- 
ing that  she  did  not  outgrow  until  late  in  her  life. 
This  crude  insensibility  of  hers  to  the  laws  of  har- 
mony in  color  and  line  was  offset,  however,  by  a 
growing  appreciation  of  what  was  finest  in  the  realm 
of  sound.  At  home  her  natural  instinct  for  music 
had  been  nourished  on  the  best  of  food, — on  Mozart, 
[66] 


THE  SCHOOLGIRL 

whose  melodies  the  HeiT  Postmeister  had  whistled 
and  sung  almost  to  the  exclusion  of  all  other  com- 
posers, and  on  Beethoven,  whom  Claus  and  Georg 
had  often  played  on  their  beloved  violins.  Mozart 
and  Beethoven  were  indeed  a  wholesome  antidote 
to  the  sweetish  Verdi-Donizetti-Meyerbeer  poison 
that  at  that  time  threatened  to  coiTode  Germany's 
musical  taste.  Concluding  that  her  Verdi-smitten 
piano  teacher  gave  her  "trash"  to  play,  and  that 
his  method  was  not  so  exact  as  it  might  be,  Catd 
independently  changed  instructors,  and  reported 
the  fait  accompli  to  her  parents  with  an  assured 
"Taking  your  permission  for  granted,  I  have  given 
up  Herr  X,  whose  musical  taste  and  method  were 
inferior.  Under  Herr  Z's  excellent  guidance  I  at 
last  [!]  begin  to  see  that  music  is  a  great  art.  Oh,  if 
my  sisters  only  could  have  such  instruction  and 
could  be  made  to  practice  regularly !  — for  there  is 
no  comfort  in  life  without  music." 

Her  own  great  musical  ambition  at  this  time  was 
to  be  able  to  sing.  She  took  lessons,  but  soon  found, 
though  the  teacher  disagreed  with  her,  that  she 
had  no  singing  voice.  So  she  took  to  whistling 
again.  To  indulge  her  fondness  for  this  she  some- 
times went  into  the  old  Jewish  cemetery  that  she 
had  to  pass  on  her  way  to  school.  Here  she  found 
[67] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

a  grateful  auditor  in  the  old  day  laborer  who  liked 
to  chat  with  her.  The  wrinkled  fellow's  wrath  at  the 
"tough  old  Israelites,"  whose  gravestones,  hidden 
under  the  grass,  blunted  his  scythe,  remained  a 
mirthful  remembrance  to  her. 

A  considerable  number  of  plain  men — shop- 
keepers and  mechanics — befriended  the  Frisian 
girl,  allowing  her  to  pry  about  their  shops  and 
watch  them  at  their  work.  The  philosophical  shoe- 
maker, hammering  away  at  her  heavy  boots,  dis- 
cussed heaven  and  earth  with  her;  the  watchmaker 
let  her  try  her  hand  at  repairing  her  old  time- 
piece, and  showed  his  liking  for  his  sharp  appren- 
tice by  presenting  her  with  a  steel  chain  of  her 
own  choosing, — "one  you  can  hang  on  without 
breaking  it,"  as  Tosi  admiringly  described  it. 

The  catholicity  of  her  disposition  which,  in  a 
world  of  sharply  marked  social  distinctions,  en- 
abled her  to  enjoy  simple  human  relations  like 
these  must,  in  a  measure,  have  caused  her  indiffer- 
ence to  such  lines  of  separation  as  the  three  reli- 
gious sects  (Catholic,  Protestant,  and  Jewish)  had 
established  among  the  population  of  Hildesheim. 
To  be  sure,  she  was  of  too  decidedly  Germanic 
breed  to  think  of  associating  intimately  with  the 
families  of  her  schoolmates  of  Israelitish  blood,  but 
[68] 


THE  SCHOOLGIRL 

she  had  a  warm  friendship  for  one  or  two  Jewish 
school-comrades, — an  eccentricity  which  amazed 
her  relatives,  especially  those  in  East  Frisia,  whose 
racial  and  social  disdain  of  the  dark-haired  "Jod- 
skes"  was  very  pronounced  indeed.  Nor  did  she 
share  the  contempt  of  her  Protestant  friends  for 
the  priest-ridden  Catholics.  The  Catholic  Church 
in  Hildesheim,  surrounded  by  all  the  concrete 
fascinations  of  its  ancient  history,  though  humili- 
ated at  the  time  by  the  Prussian  policy  of  subjec- 
tion, made  a  vivid  impression  on  her.  She  fre- 
quented it  for  the  sake  of  its  music  and  gorgeous 
display,  but — unlike  her  brother  in  this  as  in 
everything  else — she  never  for  a  moment  yielded 
to  its  thought-lulling  charms.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  church  that  claimed  her  by  birth  and  baptism 
was  least  attractive  to  her.  She  was  confirmed  in 
the  Lutheran  Church  (Easter,  1869),  like  all  chil- 
dren of  law-abiding  German  parents,  and  now 
could  claim  the  threefold  label  of  "baptized," 
"vaccinated,"  "confirmed,"  that  the  Fatherland 
put  on  its  genuine  stock.  How  far  in  Catd's  case, 
as  in  many  others,  the  catechisings,  devotional  ex- 
ercises, and  Bible  classes  that  the  established  Church 
of  Germany  exacts  from  its  Konjirmanden  during 
the  six  months  preceding  their  first  Communion 
[69] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

failed  of  their  real  purpose  may  be  seen  from  the 
one  remark  she  makes  on  the  subject  in  a  letter  to 
her  parents:  "The  everlasting  church-going  and 
praying  is  over,  Gott  sei  Dank,  and  now  I  never 
need  bother  about  these  things  any  more."  The 
Lutheran  Church,  that,  according  to  her  own  im- 
patient expression,  keeps  forever  "gnawing  at  the 
bones  of  grace"  and  that  for  more  than  a  century 
has  been  "but  a  clog  to  the  feet  of  spiritual  prog- 
ress," interested  her  even  less  than  did  the  rest  of 
those  institutions  which  claim  to  have  a  monopoly 
on  orthodox  faith  for  the  dealing  out  of  religious 
truth. 

Her  indifference  to  the  church  of  her  fathers, 
for  a  time  at  least,  changed  into  an  outspoken 
antagonism  when  it  appeared  that  it  was  the  Lu- 
theran clergy  that  successfully  opposed  all  schemes 
for  a  more  liberal  education  of  girls.  The  man 
who  fought  most  earnestly  against  this  blank  wall 
of  prejudice  at  Hildesheim  was  Dr.  Holscher,  the 
Director  of  the  Girls'  High  School,  a  man  clear- 
sighted, progressive,  and  of  the  broadest  intellec- 
tual sympathies.  This  personality  of  rarest  fiber  did 
more  toward  shaping  Catd's  future  ideals  and  work 
than  perhaps  that  of  any  other  one  of  her  teachers. 
The  same  unfavorable  conditions  which  hampered 
[70] 


THE  SCHOOLGIRL 

his  work  had  so  intimate  an  influence  on  Catd,  not 
only  in  Hildesheim,  but  later  in  Hannover,  that 
they  demand  elaboration  here. 


[71] 


XI 

"  ^1 0  much  is  done  now  for  the  improvement  of 
w3  schools  in  general,  why  is  it  that  the  girls' 
schools  are  always  left  out  of  consideration ! "  This 
complaint  young  Goethe  in  1765  wrote  to  his  sister, 
one  of  the  early  victims  of  the  insufficiency  of  scope 
in  education  and  fields  of  activity  open  to  women 
in  modem  Germany.  A  hundred  years  had  passed, 
and  the  conditions  criticised  by  the  worshiping 
lover  of  woman  still  prevailed  in  the  "land  of 
schools."  Theory,  to  be  sure,  that  ever  radiant  and 
alluring  ruler  of  German  minds,  had  convincingly 
pleaded  for  the  common  humanity  of  man  and 
woman,  and  poetic  vision  had  given  shape  to  such 
ideal  conceptions  of  intellectual  womanhood  as 
Iphigenie,  Eleonore,  Natalie.  But  theory  and  poetry 
had  been  powerless  to  move  and  mold  the  heavy 
and  unwieldy  mass  of  actuality.  It  was  not  until 
the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century — a  time  when 
political  life  in  Germany  had  once  more  fallen  into 
the  slough  of  stagnation — that  practical  schemes 
at  last  began  to  take  their  place  by  the  side  of 
heaven-soaring  theories  and  poetic  impersonations; 
that  the  active  interest  of  experienced  schoolmen 
turned  to  the  long-neglected  field  of  girls'  educa- 
[72] 


THE  SCHOOLGIRL 

tion ;  that  women  themselves  began  their  organized 
efforts  for  the  improvement  of  woman's  industrial, 
social,  and  intellectual  condition;  and  that  strong 
personalities  like  Luise  Otto  Peters,  Auguste 
Schmidt,  and  Helene  Lange  stirred  public  senti- 
ment and  showed  by  their  own  example  what  a 
great  and  good  thing  a  highly  educated  woman  is. 

The  plans  for  the  improvement  of  woman's  edu- 
cation which  were  brought  before  the  public  were 
of  the  most  varied  and  even  contradictory  descrip- 
tion. Conservatists  held  that  the  traditional  aes- 
thetic education  should  be  continued,  and  that  girls 
should  be  taught,  as  before,  by  men ;  others  pleaded 
for  women  teachers,  and  advocated  a  thorough  train- 
ing in  economics  and  domestic  science  for  the  fu- 
ture housewife ;  the  more  advanced  maintained  that 
woman,  who  after  the  development  of  machinery 
could  no  longer  be  an  essential  factor  in  the  indus- 
trial life  of  the  nation,  should  above  all  be  educated 
with  a  view  to  the  development  of  her  own  pecu- 
liar faculties;  lastly  the  radicals,  and  among  them 
the  socialists,  entirely  reduced  the  question  of  ideals 
to  one  of  bread  and  butter,  and  demanded  like 
education  for  boys  and  girls. 

Meanwhile  an  over-cautious  paternal  government 
complacently  went  on  at  its  snail's  pace  of  progres- 
[73] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

sion,  and  through  its  official  mouthpieces  from 
time  to  time  gave  utterance  of  what  it  thought 
about  the  matter.  "A  system  of  public  schools  for 
girls,"  wrote  one  of  the  councilors  of  education  in 
1865,  "corresponding  to  that  established  for  the 
boys  is  a  contradiction  in  terms, — something  so 
unnatural  that  it  will  never  be  realized." 

So,  in  spite  of  all  discussions,  tracts,  and  peti- 
tions, the  girls'  schools  remained  officially  what  they 
had  been  for  centuries, — conservatories  for  the  cul- 
tivation of  such  decorative  or  useful  products  as 
man,  searching  the  marriage  markets,  might  be  de- 
sirous of  procuring  for  his  parlor,  his  kitchen,  or 
his  nursery.  But  although  the  state,  the  controller 
of  all  schools,  public  and  private,  in  Germany,  had 
not  been  roused,  the  interest  of  the  municipalities 
awakened  to  such  a  degree  that  a  rapid  increase  in 
the  number  of  girls'  high  schools  was  the  immediate 
result.  In  some  of  the  larger  cities  training  schools 
for  women  teachers  also  were  established,  and  thus 
girls'  education  gained  much  in  extension.  The 
curriculum,  to  be  sure,  was  the  same  old  bill  of  fare 
of  almost  a  hundred  years  past, — religion,  German 
(literature  and  rhetoric),  history,  French,  English, 
geography,  arithmetic,  nature  studies,  singing, 
drawing,  sewing,  and  gymnastics.  Neither  ad- 
[74] 


THE  SCHOOLGIRL 

vanced  mathematics  nor  classics  had  a  place  in  this 
programme,  nor  did  the  amount  taught  in  the 
approved  subjects  begin  to  compare  with  that 
required  to  feed  the  brains  of  German  boys.  The 
text-books,  too,  of  which  few  are  used  in  any 
German  school,  not  only  were  extremely  scant  in 
number,  but  were  also  concocted  with  special  con- 
cessions to  delicate  female  intellects.  So  in  1865  there 
were  (as  in  fact  there  still  are)  such  monstrosities  in 
German  girls'  schools  as  a  History  of  the  World 
for  Girls,  a  Literature  for  Girls,  yes,  even  an  Arith- 
metic for  Girls. 

If  one  merely  inquired  into  the  what,  not  into 
the  how  of  matters,  one  would  conclude  from  the 
preceding  that  the  education  of  German  girls  some 
fifty  years  ago  was  rather  a  superficial  affair.  We 
must  not  forget,  however,  that  German  school  cur- 
ricula, tme  to  the  blessed  old  German  way  of  em- 
phasizing the Sein  more  than  the  Schein  ("quality" 
more  than  "quantity"),  promise  less  than  they  ac- 
tually give.  In  other  words,  the  education  that  Ger- 
man girls  got,  and  still  get,  in  their  poorly  equipped 
schools,  is  pretty  much  on  a  level  with,  if  not  su- 
perior to,  that  given  by  the  girls'  high  schools  in 
countries  where  the  curriculum  shows  the  most 
dazzling  array  of  advanced  subjects.  An  English- 
[75] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

man,  studying  the  actual  condition  of  girls'  edu- 
cation in  Germany  during  the  seventies,  could 
without  any  undue  amount  of  Tacitean  idealizing 
say  that  all  German  schools  for  "females,"  low  and 
high,  were  excellent,  the  instruction  in  them  being 
so  systematic  and  thorough  that  a  servant  maid  in 
Germany  was  "  better  grounded  than  most  young 
ladies  in  England."  *  Systematic  instruction, — yes, 
that  is  one  secret  of  the  general  success  of  German 
school-training;  and  also,  as  the  appreciative 
Englishman  might  have  added,  the  personality  of 
the  teacher, — two  qualifying  items  that  make  all 
the  difference  in  the  world.  The  men  who  taught 
the  girls,  though  generally  not  the  most  shining 
lights  in  their  profession,  were  nevertheless  men 
thoroughly  trained  for  their  work,  and,  like  all  Ger- 
man teachers,  filled  with  the  dignity  of  their  office. 
What  John  T.  Prince  of  Massachusetts  says,  in  his 
Methods  of  Instruction  and  Organization  in  the  Ger- 
man Schools,  about  the  German  teacher  of  to-day 
was  true  also  fifty  years  ago.  Having  described  the 
strong  influence  of  the  German  teacher  in  "outside 
affairs,"  "a  transmission  of  powers  won  by  the 
courage,  zeal,  and  intellectual  strength  of  the 
teachers  of  three  centuries,"  he  continues:  "In  the 

*  S.  Baring  Gould,  M.  A.,  London,  1879 :  Oermany,  Present  and  Pcutt 
vol.  i.  p.  228. 

[76] 


THE  SCHOOLGIRL 

schoolroom  his  personality  is  even  more  marked. 
Here  we  learn  the  secret  of  his  power,  which  is 
that  he  is  earnest  in  carrying  out  a  purpose,  .  .  . 
behind  which  there  are  both  intelligence  and  pro- 
fessional training."  *  The  German  schoolmaster,  as 
soon  as  he  had  awaked  to  the  necessity  of  the  new 
demand,  could  not  but  overstep  the  limits  that  tra- 
dition, custom,  law,  had  fixed  for  his  field  of  work. 
So  it  happened  that  a  good  part  of  advanced 
mathematics,  for  instance,  which  even  now  is  ex- 
cluded from  the  official  curriculum  of  the  girls' 
high  schools,  was  smuggled  in  under  cover  of  arith- 
metic, and  that  Latin  here  and  there  came  in  with 
French.t 

The  same  government  that  rigorously  insists  on 
the  suppression  of  all  individuality  in  its  soldiery 
leaves  its  army  of  school-teachers  practically  un- 

♦  "The  pupil  teacher,  pitiable  product  of  the  English  school-starving 
system,  is  unknown  in  Germany.  Teaching  of  even  an  elementary  char- 
acter is  deferred  until  the  theoretical  part  of  training  is  over, — the 
eight  or  ten  years'  continuous  study,  first  in  a  higher  school,  be  it 
observed,  and  then  in  a  training  college.  The  result  is  that  qualified 
teachers  enter  upon  the  serious  work  of  life  and  become  independent 
far  later  than  with  us,  but  popular  education  gains  incalculably  by 
the  longer  and  severer  discipline  through  which  they  are  required  to 
pass."  Dawson,  German  Life  in  Town  and  Country,  Putnam's  Sons, 
N.  Y.,  1901. 

t  The  author  herself  was  taught  French  on  the  basis  of  Latin  gram- 
mar by  the  principal  of  the  Hannover  Teachers'  Training  College.  She 
remembers  with  amusement  how  much  impotent  displeasure  the  con- 
trolling state  official  evinced  when  at  the  oral  examinations  the  pro- 
gressive principal's  transgressions  were  disclosed. 

[77] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

limited  in  this  respect.  "In  spite,"  Mr.  Prince  ob- 
serves, "of  the  minuteness  of  the  superintendent's 
inquiry  into  the  work  of  teachers,  there  seems  to 
be  little  or  no  interference  with  the  individuality 
of  teachers."  A  principal,  therefore,  of  high  ideals 
and  advanced  ideas  on  the  question  of  woman's  ed- 
ucation, such  as  the  times  were  beginning  to  pro- 
duce, could  in  a  quiet  way  do  much  toward  raising 
the  standard  and  scope  of  instruction  in  his  school. 
Dr.  Holscher,  of  the  Hildesheim  High  School  for 
Girls,  was  such  a  man.  Unlike  many  of  the  univer- 
sity-bred men  who  taught  at  the  girls'  schools,  he 
had  not  been  driven  to  this  work  either  by  his  own 
mediocrity  or  by  necessity,  but  had  chosen  it  be- 
cause to  him  the  field  of  a  higher  education  for 
girls  seemed  an  uncultivated  land  of  great  promise. 
Unluckily  for  himself  as  well  as  for  his  cause,  he 
came  to  his  post  in  Hildesheim  before  the  equita- 
ble Prussian  school  supervision  had  been  fully 
established  in  the  kingdom's  new  province  of 
Hannover.  A  dull  city  school  board,  consisting 
largely  of  orthodox  clergymen,  clogged  his  feet  at 
every  forward  step.  One  of  his  most  urgent  pleas 
had  been  for  the  building  up  of  a  normal-school 
course  which  should  enable  students  such  as  Cato 
Wenckebach  to  pass  the  examination  exacted  by  the 
[78] 


THE  SCHOOLGIRL 

Prussian  government  from  all  teachers,  private  and 
public.  Hoping  against  hope  that  his  timely  re- 
quest would  sooner  or  later  be  granted,  he  had 
meanwhile  given  several  of  his  best  students,  Cato 
among  them,  gratuitous  instruction  in  some  of  the 
courses  required  for  the  examination.  After  re- 
peated rebuffs  the  spirited  man  at  last  gave  up  the 
fight  and  resigned  his  Hildesheim  position.  In  her 
letters  Catd  laments  the  sad  event.  "Dr.  Holscher 
leaves,  and  so  my  days  in  Hildesheim  are  num- 
bered, too,"  she  tells  her  parents.  Referring  to  the 
"new  Prussian  law"  requiring  teachers'  certificates, 
she  says:  "Even  if  such  a  law  did  not  exist,  my  own 
heart  would  dictate  the  necessity  of  further  study 
before  I  enter  on  my  life  work.  For  my  education 
is  in  no  way  complete,  and  woman,  as  well  as  man, 
should  strive  for  perfection  in  all  things,  and  above 
all  should  try  to  reach  a  definite  goal  in  her  chosen 
work.  You  have  granted  my  wish  to  become  a 
teacher.  Enable  me  now  to  get  the  most  thorough 
training  possible  for  my  profession  by  allowing  me 
to  continue  my  studies  at  the  newly  founded 
Teachers'  Training  College  (Lehrerinnenseminar)  in 
Hannover.  I  most  warmly  appreciate  the  sacrifice 
involved  in  your  giving  me  these  two  additional 
years  of  school.  Let  my  education  be  my  patrimony. 
[79] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

Of  this  nobody  can  rob  me.  Happy  the  woman  who, 
by  being  enabled  to  provide  for  herself,  is  made 
conscious  of  her  own  usefulness  in  the  world." 
Whether  or  not  her  parents  recognized  Cato's  per- 
sonal application  of  Goethe's  superior  wisdom  here, 
they  were  much  impressed  by  this  mature  letter, 
and  cordially  provided  the  means  for  her  further 
study  in  the  Teachers'  College  of  Hannover.  A 
short  oral  examination,  and  an  elaborate  composi- 
tion on  Iphigenie's  plea  that  "a  useless  life  is  but 
an  early  death,"  lifted  the  eager  girl  to  the  second 
rung  of  her  ladder  of  progress. 


[80] 


XII 

WITH  a  heavy  heart  and  with  the  unprac- 
tical circumstantiality  so  characteristic  of 
the  delightful  pedant  she  could  be  at  times,  Catd 
made  preparations  to  leave  her  beloved  Hildesheim. 
"I  have  packed  my  books,"  she  wrote  in  April, 
1870;  "the  rest  of  my  things  will  be  attended  to 
to-morrow.  I  have  also  taken  leave  of  my  dear  school 
and  now  can  calmly  await  my  departure,  which  I 
have  set  for  a  week  from  to-morrow."  The  pain 
that  threatened  to  disturb  her  prized  equanimity 
at  the  idea  of  parting  from  her  "paradise,"  as  she 
called  Hildesheim,  she  averted  by  philosophizing 
on  the  advantages  of  change  in  general  and  the 
beauties  of  her  vocation  in  particular. 

Accompanied  by  her  feather  beds  and  boxes,  her 
bureau  and  piano,  she  appeared  at  her  new  home. 
Her  two  "mother  hens,"  prim  but  cultured  old 
maids,  conscientiously  kept  the  contract  they  had 
made  with  Catd;  that  is  to  say,  they  gave  her  a 
study  and  a  bedroom  for  her  own  use,  coffee  and 
rolls  for  breakfast,  a  good  two-course  meal  at  noon, 
and  tea  plus  Butterbrot  for  supper.  The  maid,  as 
Catd  had  stipulated,  brushed  her  skirts,  polished 
her  boots,  and  scrubbed  and  dusted  her  rooms. 
[81] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

"The  expense  for  these  modest  luxuries  is  heavy" 
($150  per  year),  Catd  ruefully  reported  to  the  home 
folk,  "but  I  cannot  get  anything  decent  below  that, 
since  Hannover  is  a  much  more  expensive  place 
than  Hildesheim.  And  I  am  really  very  comfortable 
here, — live  near  the  school,  have  a  little  Sitz- 
platz  in  the  garden,  have  no  Hausherr  to  grumble 
away  the  sunshine,  and  last,  not  least,  am  tended 
by  ladies  who  are  not  only  'good  Christians,'  but 
excellent  cooks  as  well." 

Living  intensely  in  the  present  as  was  her  wont, 
Catd  soon  stopped  longing  for  Hildesheim  and 
wrote  but  sparingly  to  her  friends  there.  Instead  of 
rebuke  they  sent  her  carefully  kept  diaries  fiill  of 
school  news,  and  her  bosom  friend  wrote :  "Don't 
bother  to  acknowledge  my  letters,  for  if  you  write 
to  the  other  girls  I  shall  hear  anyway."  The  same 
girl  jealously  watched  over  Catd's  honor  by  care- 
fully correcting  her  mistakes  in  punctuation  and 
spelling — always  Catd's  weak  points — before  she 
let  the  prized  letters  start  on  their  round  of  admir- 
ing readers.  This  girl  represents  the  type  of  girl  or 
woman  friends  that  Catd  found  wherever  she  went, 
— unmorally  selfless  souls  which  the  Germany  of  her 
time  produced  more  plentifully  than  it  does  in  our 
own  "perverse"  epoch  with  its  cry  for  individual- 
[82] 


THE  SCHOOLGIRL 

ism.  Though  she  never  made  any  direct  demands 
on  her  friends,  Catd  was  always  glad  to  accept  the 
many  services  that  the  motherly  among  her  sex 
offered  her.  Spiritually  this  may  have  been  a  draw- 
back to  a  nature  as  devoid  of  all  "Martha"  in- 
stincts as  Catd's  was,  but  practically  it  worked  well, 
for  it  gave  her  all  the  time  there  was  to  follow  her 
own  inward  bent  for  intellectual  pursuits. 

In  the  atmosphere  of  enthusiasm  that  prevailed 
among  the  masters  and  scholars  of  the  newly  opened 
Seminar  Catd  felt  completely  at  home.  Among  the 
sixty-two  women  in  her  class  she  soon  found  con- 
genial companions,  and  here  as  in  Hildesheim  she 
became  the  animating  center  of  an  admiring  gi'oup. 
One  of  her  inseparable  comrades,  an  American  girl, 
gives  a  vivid  description  of  Catd's  personality  as  it 
appeared  to  her  at  that  time.  "Her  little  figure," 
she  writes,  "  is  the  most  picturesque  and  unique  of 
the  many  students  I  recall.  I  can  see  her  now  as 
she  stood  in  the  large  lecture  room,  clad  in  her  red 
Highland  plaid  dress,  made  with  yoke  and  belt, 
buttoned  down  the  back,  the  round  skirt  innocent 
of  gores  and  coming  only  to  her  boot  tops;  and  her 
hair,  the  color  of  com  silk,  worn  short,  square  cut  in 
the  neck  and  drawn  straight  back  from  the  forehead 
with  a  round  rubber  comb.  Her  age  must  have  been 
[83] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

just  eighteen,  but  the  impression  made  was  of  six- 
teen years  or  younger.  If  I  call  her  masculine,  the 
expression  seems  too  strong,  but  certainly  the  car- 
riage was  commanding  and  the  whole  bearing  re- 
pudiated everything  suggestive  of  feminine  weak- 
ness or  dependence,  a  most  unusual  attitude  for  a 
German  girl.  To  the  care  of  this  masterful  small 
person  who  radiated  strength,  I  was  commended 
by  our  teacher.  '  Catd !  Cato  Wenckebach !  I  never 
heard  of  a  girl  before  who  was  christened  Catd,' 
was  my  mental  comment.  It  was  her  true  name, — 
an  old  family  name,  as  I  afterwards  found." 

The  young  foreigner  mentions  as  Catd's  most 
telling  traits  her  "intense  seriousness,  power  of 
sustained  work,  and  indomitable  will  that  never 
knew  defeat."  One  incident  she  tells  as  illustrating 
her  buoyant  energy.  "It  was  a  matter  of  great  im- 
portance to  have  seats  near  the  eye  of  the  professor 
in  order  to  get  the  most  benefit  from  lectures  and 
quizzes,  and  seats  occupied  the  first  day  were  held 
through  a  semester.  We  agreed  to  get  to  the 
Seminar  early  to  secure  desirable  places.  I  reached 
the  lecture  room  at  seven  o'clock  in  the  morning, 
to  find  it  nearly  filled,  Catd  and  the  other  members 
of  our  coterie  ranged  at  the  front  desk,  and  the 
best  seat  of  all,  the  one  directly  in  front  of  the 
[84] 


THE  SCHOOLGIRL 

professor,  reserved  for  me,  the  foreigner.  Catd  and 
her  friend  had  arisen  at  four  o'clock,  and  had  pro- 
ceeded to  the  building,  where  they  found  the 
doors  locked;  unable  to  arouse  the  sleeping  janitor, 
they  had  gone  around  to  the  back,  where  Cato, 
'boosted'  by  Martha,  had  scaled  a  ten-foot  wall, 
gained  admission  for  herself  and  her  companion, 
and  of  course  had  the  first  choice  of  seats.  Surely 
no  better  protector  could  a  young  foreigner  have, 
and  a  student  could  have  no  more  helpful  friend. 
Between  the  lectures  the  playgrounds,  the  coni- 
dors,  the  lectui*e  rooms,  were  the  scene  of  constant 
eager  talk,  almost  always  on  the  subject  of  our 
work.  We  five  girls  quizzed  each  other,  and  often  as 
leader,  as  drillmaster,  stood  the  commanding  little 
figure  with  serious  face  and  quiet,  strong  voice, — 
a  bom  teacher."" 

The  professors  were  as  much  impressed  by  Catd's 
work  and  personality  as  were  her  schoolmates.  In 
the  old  school  record  kept  for  private  reference, 
Catd  is  described  as  "possessing  extraordinary 
vigor  and  most  remarkable  gifts  for  teaching." 
While  she  excelled  in  everything  except  the  hated 
arithmetic  and  English,  she  did  her  most  dis- 
tinctive work  in  pedagogy  and  methods  of  teach- 
ing. Her  instructor  in  these  studies,  Herr  Niehaus, 
[85] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

was  an  ardent  admirer  of  Pestalozzi,  whose  grace  and 
largeness  of  spirit  he  personified  in  his  classes.  It 
was  in  a  measure  owing  to  his  influence  that  Catd 
to  the  end  of  her  days  could  proudly  call  herself  a 
"disciple  of  Pestalozzi." 

The  Hannover  Seminar,  an  outgrowth  of  the 
Hbhere  Tochterschule,  shared  both  teachers  and 
buildings  with  its  parent  school.  Much  opportu- 
nity was  therefore  afforded  to  the  future  teachers 
to  watch  the  class-room  work  of  all  the  different 
school  grades,  and  to  give  the  frequent  test  lessons 
required  of  them.  Cato  made  herself  conspicuous 
for  the  pains  she  took  to  render  these  test  lessons 
successful.  She  was  not  only  an  expert  in  that  most 
important  of  pedagogical  arts,  the  asking  of  "de- 
velopment questions,"  but  she  also  devised  clever 
schemes  for  making  her  subjects  anschaulich.  Thus 
she  brought  pictures  and  other  objects  for  illustra- 
tion to  the  classes,  and  invented  excellent  diagrams 
for  greater  Anschaulichkeit 

The  same  exaggerated  eagerness  for  work  char- 
acterized her  school  life  here  as  it  had  in  Hildes- 
heim.  Not  satisfied  with  her  school  programme  of 
thirty-two  lessons  a  week  and  a  goodly  amount  of 
complementary  outside  study,  she  took  a  lecture 
course  in  cosmography  and  extra  instruction  in 
[86] 


THE  SCHOOLGIRL 

French  conversation  and  in  piano  playing.  "I  now 
change  my  touch  for  the  fourth  time,  also  my  pro- 
nunciation of  French,"  she  wrote  in  comic  despair; 
but  with  invincible  optimism  she  immediately  added 
that  she  did  not  "really  mind,''  because  she  was 
sure  that  this  also  would  help  her  on  to  the  coveted 
perfection  in  her  beloved  vocation. 

The  small  sum  that  an  admiring  old  friend  of 
the  family  left  her  at  this  time,  she  soon  used  up 
for  books.  "I  am  not  strictly  required  to  read  all 
that  I  do  in  connection  with  history,  Uterature,  and 
especially  pedagogy,"  she  explained  to  her  wonder- 
ing relatives,  "but  I  don't  feel  satisfied  with  the 
bare  bones  of  things  as  you  get  them  in  lecture 
courses."  (A  reflection,  by  the  way,  on  German 
lecture  courses  which  will  interest  my  American 
friends !)  The  world  of  mere  fact  was  as  distasteful 
to  her  as  that  of  mere  duty.  And  the  same  instinct 
that  compelled  her  to  cushion  "bones  intellectual" 
in  the  flesh  and  blood  of  human  interest  made 
her  resist  "bones  ethical"  in  the  forbidding  form  of 
the  categorical  imperative.  "My  days  are  full  of 
work,"  she  wrote  to  a  younger  sister,  "and  that 
means  full  of  joy." 


[87] 


XIII 

BUT  Catd  was  no  mere  bluestocking.  The  same 
American  girl  who  failed  to  discover  any  sense 
of  humor  in  her  says  that  she  never  associated  her 
with  amusements  either.  How  Catd  herself  would 
chuckle  if  she  could  hear  this !  For  if  ever  student 
managed  to  have  a  good  time  in  and  out  of  work- 
ing hours,  it  was  Catd  Wenckebach,  fairly  brim- 
ming over  with  the  joy  of  living.  And  a  very  cath- 
olic joy  it  was,  embracing  the  plains  of  pure  ani- 
mal pleasures  as  heartily  as  the  lofty  summits  of 
intellectual  delights.  Unlike  the  little  blind  mute 
whom,  according  to  a  Boston  clergyman's  version, 
"the  Lord  had  blessed  by  shutting  the  main  en- 
trances to  her  soul  against  the  Devil  of  this  world," 
Catd  was  supplied  with  a  most  perfect  set  of  sense 
gates  to  let  in  his  Satanic  Majesty.  Gifted  with 
healthy  instincts  and  a  strong  moral  will,  her  hos- 
pitable nature  could  afford  to  keep  open  house  for 
whatsoever  might  enter.  Sometimes  Gluttony  stole 
in  with  his  grace  Fastidiousness,  and  clamored  for 
chocolat  Lindt,  caviar,  or  choice  fruit.  Instead  of 
sullenly  chasing  this  arch-enemy  away,  Catd  fed 
him  the  coveted  food  until  he  left  her  with  a  weary 
toiLJours  perdrix.  With  fastidiousness  her  tongue 
[88] 


>       •>>>*> 


<^-  y/c.^A^'c^^ 


e    .•  •,'»'»  .-•j>  ••"   • 


THE  SCHOOLGIRL 

never  quite  parted  company.  Like  the  American 
college  president  who,  over  thin  institutional  soup, 
humorously  invited  the  students  to  "bless  the  Lord 
for  anything  that  was  good  on  the  table,"  Catd  was 
reluctant  to  "give  thanks"  for  unsavory  food;  nor 
did  she  enjoy  being  convivial  with  people  of  indif- 
ferent palates.  To  her,  any  one  who  could  swallow 
a  glass  of  Veuve  Cliquot  as  if  it  were  so  much  soda 
water  was  a  true  barbarian. 

The  girl's  evident  appreciation  and  enjoyment  of 
good  food,  and  the  uncommon  energy  with  which 
she  attacked  it,  were  the  delight  of  many  a  good 
Hausfrau  in  the  circle  of  her  acquaintances.  "Please, 
Catd,  come  and  have  Pz^^^r*  with  us  to-morrow;" 
or,  "  Mama  wants  to  have  roast  goose  for  you  soon; 
can't  you  set  a  day?"  and  "Won't  you  come  and 
share  our  Maibowle'\  on  Sunday?"  were  requests 
often  proffered  to  her  and  never  ungraciously  re- 
fused. 

Hand  in  hand  with  this  discriminating,  if  primi- 
tive, enjoyment  of  food  went  her  delight  in  brisk  ex- 
ercise :  in  walking  and  riding,  in  dancing  and  skating. 
Skating  was  still  Catd's  favorite  sport.  She  lived  near 
the  wide  meadow  lands  which  extend  along  the  banks 

♦  Potato  pancake. 

t  White  wine  seasoned  with  woodniflf. 

[89] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

of  the  river  Leine,  and  which,  by  order  of  a  fatherly 
city  magistrate,  were  flooded  as  soon  as  cold  weather 
set  in.  The  proverbial  stiffness  of  the  somewhat 
anglicized  Hannoverians  of  old  gave  way  before 
the  frost,  just  as  the  stolidity  of  the  Frisians 
did.  Chaperons  being  frozen  out,  the  young  people 
could  enjoy  their  high  time  of  physical  exhilaration 
and  gay  flirtation.  They  could  skate  for  hours  to 
the  sound  of  military  music,  only  stopping  occa- 
sionally to  feed  on  hot  punch  and  warm  doughnuts 
served  in  the  cosy  booths.  Catd,  too,  had  her  cava- 
lier,— a  relative  of  her  spinster  hostesses, — who 
was  discarded,  however,  as  soon  as  spring  had  be- 
guiled him  into  a  proposal. 

Not  that  Catd  was  averse  to  sentiment  or  even 
to  sentimentality  as  such.  In  the  world  outside  her- 
self, young  Love,  with  his  tears  and  sighs  and  ec- 
stasies, was  sure  of  her  warm  interest  and  tender 
sympathy  wherever  she  met  him.  She  wept  and  re- 
joiced with  him  after  the  approved  fashion  of  nor- 
mal youth.  But  the  lord  that  had  possession  of  her 
own  world  of  feeling  was  Hero  worship,  and  impe- 
rious indeed  were  his  demands.  Her  spirit  drooped 
if  not  continually  fed  by  that  love  which,  according 
to  one  of  the  wise  men,  is  but  "a  higher  form  of 
the  instinct  of  self-preservation,"  the  "love  for  one's 
[90] 


THE  SCHOOLGIRL 

own  approaching  higher  condition."  In  its  crude 
form  of  Schwdrmerei  (which  is  the  much  spiritual- 
ized German  equivalent  for  the  vulgar  "ciTish")  this 
ever  hungry  instinct  of  Catd's  fastened  on  the  most 
varied  personalities,  among  them  Dr.  Dieckmann, 
the  genial  founder  of  the  Seminar  and  at  the  same 
time  the  inspiring  teacher  of  literature;  on  Holty, 
the  poet,  who  was  a  cousin  of  Catd's  hostesses ;  on 
Fraulein  Garthe,  the  charming  young  prima  donna 
of  the  court  theater. 

Catd's  passionate  Garthe  cult  was  of  course  shared 
by  her  boon  companions.  Being  too  modest  and  per- 
haps too  sensible  to  express  their  feelings  in  billet- 
doux  or  flowei-s,  they  walked  them  off  before  the 
windows  of  the  adored  object,  preferably  under  the 
shelter  of  dawn  or  darkness.  One  morning  they  had 
the  intoxicating  pleasure  of  seeing  "her"  and  her 
companion  step  out  of  the  house  and  walk  towards 
the  Eilenriede,  the  large  forest  in  which  Hanno- 
ver sips  its  morning  and  afternoon  coffee.  For  the 
sole  gratification  of  gazing  at  the  back  of  their  idol 
the  girls  followed  her,  softly,  yet  at  an  ever  dimin- 
ishing distance.  Suddenly  the  ladies  stopped,  turned, 
and  stared  at  their  mute  persecutors,  who  halted 
and  cast  down  their  eyes  in  utter  confusion  and 
shame.  Only  Catd  dared  to  look  up,  and  in  doing 
[91] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

so  caught  a  smile  that  made  her  thoroughly  dis- 
gusted with  herself.  From  that  day  on,  she  put  a 
stop  to  her  own  lovesick  meanderings  as  well  as  to 
those  of  her  companions,  and  contented  herself  with 
seeing  Jher  heroine  on  the  stage. 

After  Fraulein  Garthe  had  left  Hannover  Catd 
turned  her  back  on  the  opera  (for  Wagner  had  not 
yet  risen  on  her  horizon)  and  spent  all  her  spare 
pocket  money  on  the  drama.  Since  she  loved  to  be 
in  a  crowd,  and  was  willing,  even  in  the  coldest 
weather,  to  wait  and  jostle  for  her  seat  (costing 
twelve  and  a  half  cents),  she  could  afford  to  mount 
Olympus  at  least  once  a  week.  The  mere  sitting 
in  the  theater  was  a  joy  to  her.  Perched  on  her 
well-earned  front  seat  she  lost  herself  in  gazing  at 
the  splendor  about  her, — at  the  radiance  of  gold 
and  red  in  the  balconies  and  the  royal  boxes  below, 
at  the  rich  paintings  on  ceiling  and  curtain.  From 
the  curtain  picture,  a  dashing  creation  of  Ramberg, 
the  gifted  favorite  of  George  III  of  England,  Catd 
received  a  deep  and  lasting  impression.  Pictures 
never  interested  her  overmuch,  but  this  one  of 
Ramberg's  in  every  detail — from  the  resplendent 
Apollo  who  urges  his  quivering  steeds  onward,  down 
to  the  workmen  that  in  the  sketchy  background 
mount  the  towering  scaffoldings  of  the  unfinished 
[92] 


THE  SCHOOLGIRL 

theater — so  clearly  sang  of  Catd's  own  eternal  joy 
of  motion  and  growth  that  she  could  listen  to  it 
spellbound  until  the  performances  began. 

These,  fortunately,  more  than  fulfilled  what  the 
"painted  veil"  had  promised.  Thanks  to  the  ever 
watchful  interest  and  intelligent  sympathy  of  the 
princes  of  the  house  of  Hannover,  and  thanks  also 
to  the  true  zeal  and  pure  genius  of  actors  hke  Karl 
Devrient,  Marie  Seebach,  Hermann  Miiller,  and 
others,  the  Hannover  court  theater  had  early  de- 
veloped, and  now  religiously  maintained,  that  high 
standard  of  art  which  ever  since  Lessing's  days  has 
been  a  distinguishing  feature  of  the  German  stage. 
This  standard  demands  that  a  poet's  work  be  rev- 
erently treated  as  an  organic  whole,  and  that  the 
actors  in  their  representations  aim  at  perfect  sim- 
plicity and  naturalness.  It  condemns  as  inartistic 
all  vainglorious  star-showing,  all  pompous  posing, 
all  crude  neglect  of  so-called  minor  parts.  It  also 
repudiates  the  idea  still  current  in  other  civilized 
lands  that  the  theater  fulfills  its  mission  if  it  sat- 
isfies the  hunger  of  the  many  for  mere  shallow 
amusement.  In  serious  Germany,  where  the  theater, 
as  Carlyle  expressed  it,  "is  of  the  very  life  of  the 
nation,"  the  worship  of  the  tragic  muse,  yes,  even 
that  of  Thalia  the  joyous,  has  gradually  become 
[93] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

a  grave  and  solemn  matter.  Its  financial  support  is 
the  pride  of  sovereigns  and  citizens,  and  regular 
and  intelligent  attendance  upon  it  a  mark  of  com- 
mon respectability.  Families  subscribe  for  their 
theater  box  as  they  rent,  or  used  to  rent,  their 
church  pews,  and  even  those  who  go  to  church  on 
Sunday  morning  attend  the  theater  Sunday  even- 
ing. For  Sunday  is  the  day  when  especially  fine  per- 
formances are  offered;  when  the  school-children  are 
given  opportunity  to  see  the  classic  drama  they 
study;  when  music  students  can  hear  the  master- 
works  of  the  great  German  composers,  and  when 
the  common  herd  can  get  a  lift  out  of  their 
world  of  sordid  cares  into  Schiller's  realm  of  pure 
humanity.  Under  the  management  of  highly  cul- 
tured men  such  as  Bronsart  von  Schellendorf  *  and 
Hermann  Miillert  the  repertoire  of  the  Hannover 


*  The  distinguished  pianist  and  composer  (brother  of  the  one-time 
minister  of  war)  who  in  1869  was  appointed  business  manager  of  the 
court  theater  in  Hannover,  and  in  1888  accepted  a  call  to  the  Weimar 
theater. 

t  The  actor  and  literary  manager  of  note  whose  severe  classical  taste 
and  high  ethical  standards  exercised  a  strong  influence  on  the  dra- 
matic representations  of  the  Hannover  theater  during  the  latter  half 
of  the  last  century.  To  illustrate  how  the  best  actors  of  the  time  were 
filled  with  the  consciousness  of  their  high  cultural  mission  I  quote 
the  last  sentence  in  Miiller's  Das  KUnigliche  Hoftheater  in  Han- 
nover, 1884 :  "  May  the  theater  of  Hannover,  protected  as  it  is  by  the 
grace  of  princes  and  the  warm  support  of  an  educated  public,  con- 
tinue to  be  what  it  has  been  for  so  long,— a  temple  for  the  purest  cult 
in  the  service  of  noble  German  art !  God  grant  that  it  be  so  1 " 


[94] 


THE  SCHOOLGIRL 

theater  in  Catd's  time  was  perhaps  more  rigidly 
classical  than  the  general  public  liked;  but  for  Catd 
this  circumstance  was  but  an  added  joy.  In  her 
"heaven  "above  the  royal  box  she  fed  on  Shakespeare 
and  Goethe,  on  Calderon,  Lessing,  and  Schiller,  to 
her  heart's  content.  According  to  her  own  state- 
ment none  of  her  later  spiritual  joys  ever  surpassed 
those  which  she  felt  while  she  thus  "experienced" 
Macbeth,  Nathan,  Iphigenie,  Tell.  Like  Nietzsche 
she  came  down  from  the  heights  of  such  great  art 
as  one  who,  "changed  into  a  tragic  character  him- 
self, . . .  could  return  to  life  in  a  strangely  comforted 
mood,  with  a  new  feeling  of  safety,  as  if  after  the 
greatest  dangers  and  excesses  and  ecstasies  he  had 
found  his  way  back  to  the  limited  and  the  home- 
like; to  a  place  from  where  a  more  distinguished 
intercourse  with  our  neighbor  is  possible,  if  not  a 
superior  kindness." 


[95] 


XIV 

WHILE  school  and  theater  were  thus  attun- 
ing Catd's  exuberant  sense  of  health  and 
delight  to  the  full  thorough  bass  of  eternal  prin- 
ciples in  human  life,  the  Church,  the  third  impor- 
tant factor  in  the  training  of  the  average  German, 
exercised  no  positive  influence  whatever  on  her.  It 
was  a  Lutheran  clergyman,  however,  who  more  than 
any  other  one  individual  helped  to  temper  her  su- 
perabundant animal  spirits  into  harmony  with  the 
Good,  the  True,  the  Beautiful.  Hermann  Holty, 
whom  whimsical  fate  had  ordained  minister  of  an 
orthodox  church,  was  a  grand-nephew  of  his  greater 
namesake,  and,  like  him,  a  poet  "by  the  grace  of 
God."  Being  a  devout  worshiper  of  a  moral  Allgott 
and  a  man  of  universal  culture,  he  bore  his  official 
religion  gracefully  and  without  the  slightest  taint 
of  phrase.  Here  at  last  Catd  met  a  clergyman  in 
whose  speech  and  manner  she  could  not  detect  the 
faintest  suggestion  of  ostentatious  pose  or  of  the 
"rattling  of  the  slave-chains  of  dogma."  Catd's 
throbbing  enjoyment  of  life,  her  physical  sound- 
ness and  purity  of  race,  and  the  childlike  mixture 
in  her  mind  of  narrow  concentration  and  dreamy 
vagueness,  so  characteristic  of  the  high  North,  seem 
[96] 


THE  SCHOOLGIRL 

to  have  attracted  the  poet.  She  was  frequently  in- 
vited to  join  a  merry  symposium  in  his  home,  where, 
over  Havanas  and  a  bottle  of  choice  wine,  he  told 
his  spellbound  listener  what  she  most  liked  to  hear, 
— stories  of  Walhalla  and  of  the  heroic  deeds  of  her 
forbears  recorded  in  the  Edda.  He  also  recited  his 
own  poetic  visions  of  water  fairies  and  storm  giants, 
of  Saul's  disintegrated  soul  and  of  Ratbot  the 
Frisian,  that  heathen  prince  who  refused  baptism, 
prefeiTing  to  go  to  hell  with  his  kindred. 

Among  the  life-giving  germs  that  Catd's  mind 
received  in  the  atmosphere  of  animation  and  eleva- 
tion prevailing  about  the  poet  pastor  was  a  deep 
and  glowing  patriotism.  It  was  in  the  first  year  of 
Catd's  stay  in  anti-Prussian  Hannover  that  all  the 
German  states,  under  the  lead  of  stem  and  stanch 
Prussia,  had  at  last  risen  in  jubilant  union  against 
their  common  enemy  in  the  west;  that  the  German 
armies,  directed  by  the  genius  of  William  I, 
Moltke,  and  Bismarck  were  fighting  their  fateful 
victories  at  Worth  and  Spichern,  at  Metz  and  Se- 
dan ;  that  Paris  was  finally  seized,  and  that  in  the 
palace  of  the  old  Bourbons  at  Versailles  the  Ger- 
man princes  unanimously  proclaimed  William  of 
Prussia  emperor  of  reunited  Germany.  Holty's  pa- 
triotic muse  accompanied  the  "awakened  Titan" 
[97] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

in  his  march  of  destruction  and  his  work  of  regen- 
eration. Often  of  an  evening  while  busy  hands  about 
him,  Catd's  included,  were  raveling  soft  linen  for 
the  wounded,  the  poet  recited  his  sorrows  and  joys, 
his  fears  and  hopes,  for  the  Fatherland.  Catd,  who 
but  a  few  years  ago  had  vowed  eternal  hatred  to 
"impudent  Prussia,"  now  became  keenly  alive  to 
its  greatness,  and  contributed  her  share  of  the  pride 
and  love  and  loyalty  that  at  this  time  quivered 
through  lieb  Vaterland, 

Through  the  whole  year  that  this  war  of  Ger- 
many's deliverance  lasted,  there  was,  even  in  Han- 
nover, the  stronghold  of  the  resentful  Guelph  party, 
no  end  of  joyful  celebrations.  Catd,  of  course,  was 
bound  to  take  part  in  everything.  Whenever  the 
news  of  the  victories  came  in,  she  joined  the  crowds 
that  in  public  places  spontaneously  vented  their 
rapture  and  gratitude  in  singing  patriotic  songs 
and  sacred  hymns  of  praise.  In  spite  of  a  nervous 
fear  of  fire  she  set  up  rows  of  burning  candles 
on  her  window  sills  whenever  an  illumination  was 
the  order  of  the  evening.  After  the  arrival  of  the 
host  of  captured  French  soldiers  whom  Hannover 
harbored  for  a  couple  of  months  within  a  high 
board-wall  inclosure,  Catd  spent  a  good  many  odd 
moments  in  watching  the  strangely  picturesque 
[98] 


THE  SCHOOLGIRL 

"shakoes"  and  "red  bloomers"  through  the  knot- 
holes. Like  other  humanely  inclined  Hannove- 
rians,  she  smuggled  cigars,  chewing  tobacco,  and 
broken  words  of  kindly  interest  through  the  same 
channels.  In  January,  1871,  when  the  capitula- 
tion of  Paris  was  celebrated,  she  jubilantly  took 
part  in  the  peace  pageant.  Clad  in  white  and  sashed 
in  black,  white,  and  red,  amid  the  pealing  of  bells 
and  thundering  of  cannon,  she  walked  in  the  pro- 
cession to  the  Waterlooplatz,  where,  in  front  of  the 
Leibnitz  monument,  the  common  joy  burst  forth 
in  one  grand  heaven-storming  chorus  of  exultation 
and  awe.  Nor  did  she  miss  the  climax  of  the  whole, 
the  return  of  the  soldiei's,  who  on  June  20,  with 
wives  and  children  clinging  to  their  arms,  marched 
through  the  city  fairly  laden  down  with  the  wreaths 
and  flowers  which  from  windows  and  balconies  were 
showered  upon  them. 


[99] 


XV 

IT  was  fortunate  for  the  young  "pioneers  of  wo- 
men's higher  education"  that  the  sea  of  high 
excitement  had  calmed  down  when,  in  the  spring 
of  1872,  the  time  for  the  state  examinations  drew 
near.  These,  Hke  all  official  school  examinations  in 
Germany,  were  both  written  and  oral.  They  were 
taken  in  the  presence  of  the  commissioner  of  edu- 
cation, and  extended  over  several  whole  days.  Ex- 
pecting certain  failure  in  arithmetic  and  Biblical 
history, — the  requirements  for  which  latter  subject 
consisted  in  the  minute  memorizing  of  one  hun- 
dred church  hymns  and  of  about  as  many  Biblical 
stories, — Catd  went  to  the  examination  feeling  as 
if  she  were  assisting  at  her  own  funeral.  In  her 
"notes"  she  does  not  elaborate  on  the  events  of  the 
examination  proper,  but  gleefully  records  what  fol- 
lowed it.  "The  thirty  Schulamskmididatmnen  [can- 
didates for  a  teacher's  post]  nervously  moved  about 
in  the  second-floor  corridors  of  the  H'dhere  Toch- 
terschide  among  a  crowd  of  mothers,  sisters,  friends 
come  to  hear  the  result  of  the  examination,  which 
was  soon  to  be  communicated  to  them.  The  *  pio- 
neers' were  shrouded  in  black  silk  and  looked 
ghastly  pale  in  the  light  of  the  one  oil  lamp  that 
[  100  ] 


THE  SCHOOLGIliL^ 

shone  on  their  misery.  At  last  the  door  of  the  con- 
ference room  downstairs  opened  and  the  line  of 
solemn-looking  teachers  slowly  emerged.  All,  in- 
cluding the  Schulrat  [commissioner  of  education], 
who  headed  the  procession,  wore  their  Sunday  dress 
suits  and  each  carried  a  flickering  candle  in  his 
white-gloved  hand.  In  absolute  silence  they  ad- 
vanced up  the  stairs  and  moved  into  the  large  as- 
sembly hall  on  the  third  floor,  followed  by  the 
dumb,  tiptoeing  victims.  When  all  were  seated,  the 
teachers  on  the  platform,  the  students  on  the 
benches  facing  it,  and  when  the  Schulrat  had  en- 
joyed his  somewhat  lingering  address,  we  were  told 
that  all  of  the  candidates  had  passed,  and  that 
four  of  them,  myself  among  them,  had  passed  with 
high  distinction.  The  joy  was  indescribable:  it 
bubbled  forth  in  tears,  in  laughter,  in  embraces, 
kisses  (the  Schulrat  almost  got  one,  too),  and,  last 
but  not  least,  in  telegrams  home."  "I  have  passed 
everything,  even  arithmetic  and  Bible;  my  luck 
has  been  prodigious,"  was  Cato's  message  to  her 
proud  family. 

The  teacher's  certificate  that  Catd  had  just  won 
represented  the  highest  honor  which  until  1897 
the  Prussian  government  ever  awarded  to  its  wo- 
men educators.  It  entitled  the  holder  to  teach  in 
[101] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

families  and  private  schools  as  well  as  in  the  lower 
grades  of  the  girls'*  public  high  schools.  All  the 
more  advanced  classes,  those  in  sewing  and  conver- 
sation (French  and  English)  excepted,  were  in  the 
hands  of  men,  and  all  controlling  influence  also 
was  theirs.  Catd  had  at  no  time  looked  forward  to 
enjoying  the  privileges  granted  to  her  in  a  teacher's 
certificate.  She  possessed  neither  the  humility  nor  the 
selfless  spirit  of  devotion  that  were  needed  to  over- 
look the  intellectual  depreciation  to  which  a  mas- 
culine government  subjected  its  women  teachers.* 
Her  aim  in  studying  had  been  to  study,  not  to  get 
a  certificate.  Her  parents  wanted  her  to  return  home 
and  teach  her  sisters,  but  did  not  put  the  slightest 
compulsion  on  her.  So  she  easily  persuaded  herself 
that  it  was  best  for  her,  for  the  present  at  least,  to 
follow  her  own  strong  craving  for  new  sights  and 
new  experiences. 

Of  all  the  foreign  countries  that  she  hoped  to  visit, 
England  was  in  many  ways  the  least  attractive  to 
her.  Although  in  character  and  race  she  had  more 
in  common  with  the  English,  perhaps,  than  with 
her  own  German  brethren  of  the  South,  she  never 
cared  either  for  them  or  their  language.  The  amus- 

*  Compare  what  she  says  about  this  subject  in  Part  III.,  chapter  xxiii. 
page  178. 

[  102] 


THE  SCHOOLGIRL 

ing  recipe  she  gave  for  the  pronunciation  of  Eng- 
lish shows  clearly  how  it  appealed  to  her.  "Take 
the  five  vowels,"  she  advised  the  student  of  Eng- 
lish, "mix  well  and  swallow.  When  thoroughly 
ruminated,  spit  them  out  with  much  hissing,  sput- 
tering, and  gurgling." 

In  spite  of  these  prejudices  against  her  cousins 
across  the  Channel,  she  accepted  a  position  as  gov- 
erness in  an  English  family,  hoping  to  find  com- 
parative freedom  from  interfering  supervision  and 
a  larger  scope  of  activity  in  England,  where  a 
growing  circle  of  the  cultured  classes  acknow- 
ledged the  superiority  of  German  methods  of  in- 
struction. 

All  Catd  asked  of  life  were  new  possibilities  of 
intellectual  growth  for  herself  and  a  fair  chance  to 
foster  such  growth  in  others.  That  her  chosen  vo- 
cation would  help  her  most  efficiently  to  pursue 
these  ideals  she  confidently  expected.  At  the  fare- 
well gathering  of  teachers  and  students  around  the 
traditional  bowl  of  punch, — the  emblem  of  social 
cheer  in  Germany, — Catd,  amid  the  general  toast- 
ing, declaimed  on  the  teacher's  life.  "And  if,"  she 
wound  up  her  youthful  piece  of  rhetoric,  "misfor- 
tunes come  to  us  that  at  times  will  make  our  days 
seem  like  a  starless  night,  let  us  remember  that  our 
[  108] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

vocation  is  our  life,  and  that  God  is  the  light  of 
our  life!" 

Before  she  left  Hannover  she  once  more  with  her 
comrades  visited  "the  dear,  peaceful  schoolrooms, 
the  spiritual  home  of  golden  years  of  youth."  "It 
is  with  deep  sorrow,"  she  wrote,  "that  we  leave  this 
place  in  which  for  years  heart,  mind,  and  spirit  have 
been  nurtured  by  faithful  teachers.  Happy  those 
who  can  remember  this  blessed  place  with  sincere 
gratitude  and  childlike  longing,  who,  when  out  in 
the  cold,  strange  world,  will  be  spurred  on  by  the 
memories  of  warm  blessings  enjoyed  here  to  do 
unto  others  as  has  been  done  unto  them." 


[  104  ] 


PART  III 
THE  WANDERER 


You  cannot  really  know  your  fellow  beings  un- 
til you  have  looked  at  them  from  the  position 
of  a  dependent.  c.  w. 


XVI 

I  IKE  the  youth  whom  Schiller  depicts  as  "launch- 
^  ing  into  life  hoisting  a  thousand  sails,"  the 
young  teacher,  one  day  in  May,  1872,  set  sail  from 
Hamburg  on  her  quest  for  self-development.  A 
consuming  eagerness  for  work  and  a  buoyant  spirit 
of  adventure  prevented  sad  thoughts  at  parting, 
nor  did  her  nineteen  years  know  any  fear.  The  fact 
that  she  was  the  only  woman  on  board — her  travel- 
ing companions  being  seven  burly  business  men — 
did  not  trouble  her  in  the  least,  though  it  made 
Auguste,  who  saw  her  off,  quite  uneasy.  A  bond  of 
lively  comradeship  seems  to  have  been  established 
immediately  between  the  men  and  this  breezy  girl, 
who  suggested  anything  but  the  charm  of  feminine 
frailty  and  dependence. 

After  an  "unusually  short"  trip  of  but  two  days 
and  three  nights,  the  steamer  reached  Edinburgh. 
With  exultation  Cato  greeted  the  "sentinels  of 
splendid  rocks"  at  the  harbor,  and  with  growing 
exuberance  of  spirit  she  traveled  through  the  lovely 
Scotch  country  to  her  first  "home  station,"  a  large 
estate  in  Perthshire.  The  scenery,  with  its  lyric 
change  of  "hill  and  dale,"  and  its  fantastic  shapes 
of  rocks  and  ruined  castles,  appealed  to  her  enthusi- 
[  107  ] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

astic  love  of  nature,  and  furnished  a  fitting  back- 
ground for  her  soaring  and  thoroughly  romantic 
expectations  of  life. 

Cold  reality  grasped  her,  however,  as  soon  as  she 
reached  her  future  home,  where  she  was  received 
with  perfect  courtesy,  but  with  an  aloofness  of  man- 
ner which  checked  her  exuberance  of  spirit  at  once. 
In  a  short  time  the  proud  girl  had  learned  the  hard 
lesson  which,  especially  among  Anglo-Saxons,  gov- 
ernesses are  never  allowed  to  forget, — that  in  spite 
of  her  superior  education  her  position  in  life  hence- 
forth was  to  be  that  of  a  subordinate.  Having 
grown  up  among  a  people  who  thoroughly  honor 
and  respect  the  educators  of  their  children,  Cato 
never  could  become  reconciled  to  this  most  puzzling 
feature  of  her  experiences  in  England.  "Among 
the  English,"  she  wi*ote,  "the  title  of  governess 
just  raises  you  above  the  servile  class  without  ad- 
mitting you  into  the  sphere  of  those  who  can  af- 
ford to  pay  for  your  services.  And  it  is  not  enough 
that  a  governess  here  must  renounce  all  claims  to 
social  intercourse,  she  is  also  given  to  understand 
— sometimes  in  the  most  tactless  manner — that 
she  has  no  right  to  expect  even  the  common  cour- 
tesy of  being  introduced  to  the  friends  of  the  family. 
'Oh,  she  is  the  governess!** — with  some  such  phrase 
[  108  ] 


THE  WANDERER 

the  long-suffering  individual  is  pointed  out  to  sat- 
isfy casual  curiosity  and  to  give  warning  that  un- 
necessary social  courtesy  need  not  be  wasted  on  her. 
What  a  puzzling  humiliation  for  a  cultured  woman 
to  see  herself  slighted  on  account  of  her  high  call- 
ing, especially,  as  often  happens,  by  people  whose 
intellectual  superior  she  is !  How  can  a  teacher  pos- 
sess the  needed  authority  if  she  is  not  respected 
socially?"' 

The  root  of  this  serious  evil  Catd  saw  not  only 
in  the  "materialism  and  egoism  so  characteristic 
of  the  English  nation,"  but  also  in  the  prevalent 
"rotten  methods  of  instruction, — methods  which 
reduce  the  children  to  machines  and  the  teachers  to 
mechanics."  "Little  or  no  emphasis,"  the  devoted 
disciple  of  Pestalozzi  and  Froebel  exclaims,  "is  laid 
on  the  sciences.  The  approved  method  of  instruc- 
tion is  a  game  of  set  questions  and  answers  which 
prevent  the  teacher  not  only  from  developing  the 
logical  faculties  of  his  students,  but  also  from  in- 
spiring an  interest  in  the  subjects  taught." 

Finding  that  these  questions  and  answers  mm- 
bled  about  confusedly  in  the  heads  of  her  pupjls,  a 
boy  of  thirteen  and  a  girl  of  fifteen,  Catd  deter- 
mined to  rekindle  the  sparks  of  thought  and  intu- 
ition smoldering  under  heaps  of  memorized  rub- 
[  109  ] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

bish.  But  when  she  set  about  energetically  to  apply 
the  methods  of  Pestalozzi,  the  mother  interfered. 
The  latter  could  not  bear  to  see  her  darling  boy, 
"who  had  always  been  a  model  pupil," — whose  dull- 
ness, in  other  words,  had  been  covered  up  so  far 
under  the  surface  sparkle  of  an  easy  verbal  memory, 
— lose  his  accustomed  precedence  over  his  sister  and 
fellow  student.  So  the  vain  mother  forced  Catd, 
whose  better  judgment  was  surprised  into  silence 
by  the  tone  of  lofty  superiority  assumed  toward 
her,  to  follow  the  "old,  approved"  routine  of  teach- 
ing. The  lady,  moreover,  procured  a  key,  by  the  help 
of  which  she  corrected  the  boy's  French  exercises 
before  they  were  handed  in  to  his  relentlessly  accu- 
rate German  governess.  Catd's  pride  and  profes- 
sional ambition  writhed  under  such  arrogance,  but 
common  sense  urged  her  not  to  battle  against  wind- 
mills, a  Quixotic  exercise  toward  which,  as  a  thor- 
oughbred Frisian,  she  was  constitutionally  disin- 
clined. "If  people  insist  on  wanting  beads  instead 
of  pearls,"  she  wrote  at  this  time,  "why  should  I 
waste  my  precious  emotion  in  urging  my  pearls  on 
them?  Elk  sin  moge — everybody  to  his  taste."  So 
she  did  not  waste  any  more  "emotion"  on  this  case, 
but  calmly  decided  to  serve  out  her  year  in  the 
comfort  and  pedagogical  unconcern  that  the  ap- 

[no] 


THE  WANDERER 

proved  English  methods  allowed  their  propagators. 
Finding,  however,  that  the  girl's  instincts  and 
tastes  were  for  the  best  that  education  could  give, 
Catd's  indifference  at  once  changed  into  the  alert 
interest  of  the  bom  educator.  To  help  the  "bright, 
brown -eyed  young  sylph"  she  cleverly  persuaded 
the  mother  that  it  would  be  better  for  both  boy 
and  girl  if  they  could  be  taught  separately.  The 
mature  tact  and  dignity  with  which,  even  in  her 
young  days,  Cato  could  handle  questions  of  im- 
portance to  her,  no  less  than  her  high-minded  dis- 
interestedness, evidently  won  the  confidence  of  the 
fond  mother,  for  the  schoolroom  supervision  was 
relaxed  and,  for  a  time  at  least,  methods  made  in 
Germany  were  tacitly  allowed  to  crowd  out  the 
native  article. 

The  two  girls  soon  became  good  friends.  "Young 
Sylph,"  in  return  for  the  goodly  number  of  extra 
hours  that  her  indefatigable  companion  spent  in  her 
instruction,  could  give  "Young  Bear"  many  valu- 
able hints  in  neglected  conventionalities  such  as 
society  manners  and  dress.  Thus  the  ugly  duckling 
was  persuaded  to  stick  a  few  peacock's  feathers  into 
her  unsightly  plumage, — one  in  the  shape  of  an 
evening  dress  with  a  long  train,  which,  under  her 
pupiPs  laughing  supervision,  she  practiced  "kicking 

[in] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

about  gracefully;"  another  in  the  form  of  a  high 
chignon  "which,"  she  declared,  "even  the  servants 
here  have  to  wear  in  order  to  preserve  their  re- 
spectability. Mary,"  she  goes  on,  "patiently  teaches 
me  to  pad  my  skull  with  thirty  shillings'  worth  of 
wool,  which,  in  this  atmosphere  of  padded  gentility, 
is  to  prevent  my  head  from  being  made  a  butt  for 
ridicule." 

Provided  with  chignon,  train,  and  white  kid 
gloves, — fetters  of  fashion  to  which  Catd  at  no 
time  of  her  life  could  become  reconciled, — she 
went  in  for  English  society,  although  she  knew 
that  at  the  festive  gatherings  of  the  proud  aristo- 
crats her  place  was  but  that  of  a  convenient  music 
box.  Her  talents  in  that  line,  the  shocking  whistle 
excepted,  seem  to  have  been  greatly  appreciated, 
for  they  were  in  constant  demand.  How  this  appre- 
ciation struck  the  artist  herself  may  be  gathered 
from  the  following:  "It  is  a  strange  experience," 
she  writes,  "to  live  among  a  people  who  are  almost 
entirely  devoid  of  the  musical  sense.  Maybe  this  de- 
ficiency is  in  some  way  accountable  for  the  prover- 
bial social  dullness  of  the  English."  With  this 
"dullness"  she  must  have  made  especially  intimate 
acquaintance,  for  she  mentions  it  in  every  letter 
she  writes.  In  these  letters  one  cannot  fail  to  ob- 
[112] 


THE  WANDERER 

serve  that  the  feelings  of  amused  wonder  or  good- 
natured  superciliousness,  which  the  peculiarities  of 
Catd's  new  neighbors  at  first  aroused  in  her,  grad- 
ually deteriorate  into  scorn  and  sarcasm, — cor- 
rosives that  one  regrets  to  see  embitter  her  splendid 
optimism.  The  Scotch-English  Sabbath  especially, 
with  its  Jewish  spirit  of  negation  and  its  "phari- 
saical  sanctimoniousness,'"*  again  and  again  excites 
her  indignation.  "I  hate  the  English  Sunday  as  I 
hate  cod-liver  oil  and  fancywork!*"  she  breaks  out 
in  childish  wrath;  "oh,  for  one  good,  strong,  hearty 
laugh  in  this  depressing  atmosphere  of  ghastly 
tracts!"  And  in  another  letter  the  mature  woman 
sighs:  "Oh,  for  the  serenity  and  bliss  of  our  Con- 
tinental Sunday,  with  its  summer  joys  of  walks  and 
garden  concerts,  and  its  winter  cheer  ofhome  conviv- 
iality and  theater-going!  Here  one  gees  to  church 
twice,  or  even  three  times,  to  hear  an  elegantly 
shirted  clergyman  read  (yes,  read!)  his  indifferent 
sermons, — sermons  that  are  too  high-flown  for  the 
plain  to  understand  and  too  stupid  for  the  educated 
to  enjoy.  But  don't,  please,  imagine  that  the  people 
are  especially  religious  for  all  their  apparent  piety. 
On  the  contrary,  I  never  saw  a  more  miserable,  be- 
sotted set  than  the  lower  classes  among  the  Scotch." 

I  do  not  know  whether  or  not  the  W s  were 

[113] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

Espicopalians ;  it  was  during  her  stay  with  them, 
at  any  rate,  that  Catd  contracted  her  peculiar  and 
marked  dislike  for  the  Episcopal  form  of  worship, — 
a  dislike  that  in  later  years  softened,  but  was  never 
wholly  overcome.  What,  aside  from  the  "shirted 
man"  {Hemdenmann)  and  the  perpetually  recumng 
"miserable  sinner,"  permanently  prejudiced  her 
against  the  Anglican  Church  may  be  gathered  from 
some  notes  on  this  subject  written  a  few  years  after 
her  stay  in  Perthshire.  "A  service  in  the  High 
Church  of  England,"  she  writes,  "is  not  solemn  and 
mystical  like  that  in  the  Roman  Catholic  Church, 
nor  is  it  stern  and  aspiring  like  the  worship  of  the 
Lutherans :  it  rather  has  a  dry,  business-like  char- 
acter, in  keeping  with  the  temperament  of  the 
worshipers,  and  consists  of  a  series  of  mechanical 
exercises  which  succeed  each  other  regularly  and 
monotonously." 

In  spite  of  her  affection  for  her  pupil,  and  not- 
withstanding the  much  appreciated  luxuries  of  life, 
Catd  was  glad  when  she  had  served  her  year  and 
could  leave  this  uncongenial  Scotch  clime,  "in 
which,"  as  she  says,  "the  heart  congeals  and  the 
mind  deteriorates.  No  music,  no  theater,  no  intel- 
lectual intercourse  of  any  kind, — and  nature  un- 
approachable for  three  fourths  of  the  entire  year." 
[  114] 


THE  WANDERER 

"No,  I  can't  stay,"  she  wrote  to  an  older  friend 
who  had  warned  her  against  her  own  restlessness; 
"next  week  I  leave  this  dull  place,  hoping  for  in- 
teresting new  experiences  somewhere  else." 


[115] 


XVII 

NEW  experiences  the  young  teacher-errant 
was  to  get,  but  hardly  such  as  she  craved, 
for  the  year  that  followed  proved  to  be  the  blackest 
and  saddest  of  all  the  dark  years  that  her  "  miser- 
able govemess-dom"  yielded.  Of  the  three  positions 
offered  to  her  by  a  London  agent,  she  chose  the 
one  bringing  the  lowest  salary,  because  it  would, 
as  she  supposed,  take  her  out  of  "bigoted"  Scot- 
land into  the  "somewhat  freer"  atmosphere  of 
England.  The  irony  of  fate  would  have  it,  however, 
that  a  week  after  her  arrival  in  Yorkshire,  the 
family — owing  to  the  sudden  death  of  its  head — 
moved  into  the  Scotch  Highlands  to  spend  the 
year  in  mourning  and  fasting. 

It  seems  that  Catd's  new  mistress,  the  mother  of 
twelve  children,  five  of  whom  were  under  the  care 
of  the  German  governess,  was  a  thoroughbred  miser. 
To  save  money  the  wealthy  woman  had  rented  a 
miserable  house,  a  mere  shooting-box,  for  the  year, 
and  there  deliberately  froze  and  starved  her  house- 
hold. 

Well-fed  and  well-bred  Catd  could  now  enjoy 
novel  experiences  to  her  heart's  content.  For  the 
first  time  in  her  life  she  was  made  to  understand 
[116] 


THE  WANDERER 

the  full  meaning  of  "leanness"  and  "meanness," 
— qualities  that  her  generous  instincts  loathed  and 
her  mind,  in  some  way,  insisted  on  connecting. 
Mrs.  Mutton-Potts,  as  Catd  humorously  parodied 
the  lady's  name,  would  have  been  a  capital  study 
for  a  Dickens  or  a  Gottfried  Keller.  A  lank,  bony 
figure  in  a  dingy  red  wrapper;  hard,  weather-beaten 
features  set  off  by  bristling  red  hair  and  piercing 
gray  eyes;  a  bragging  disposition;  a  pompous  man- 
ner,— these  are  ingredients  that  real  life  does  not 
often  combine  in  one  and  the  same  person.  But 
Catd's  literary  or  psychological  development  had 
not  reached  the  height  from  which  she  might  have 
enjoyed  this  masterpiece  of  a  female  Harpagon.  She 
was,  on  the  contrary,  thoroughly  disgusted  and  un- 
happy; and  in  her  "miserable  rat-hole  of  a  room, 
with  its  dim  skylight  and  sooty  walls,  its  shaky, 
scant  furniture,  and  the  heavy  packing-boxes  which 
served  to  keep  out  the  squeaking,  fighting  vermin," 
could  not  always  wrestle  successfully  with  her  rising 
tears.  She  contemplated  the  idea  of  flight,  but  soon 
gave  it  up  as  cowardly.  "No ! "  she  exclaimed ;  "  how- 
ever hard  it  will  be  to  live  with  these  people,  I  will 
stay  by  my  guns  to  the  very  last.  It  would  be  cow- 
ardice to  leave  this  desolate  post  without  a  struggle. 
What  would  my  school  companions  say  if  they  could 
[117] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 
know  that  my  exalted  love  for  my  vocation  had  al- 
ready received  a  damper!  What  would  my  own  heart 
feel  if,  after  all  my  enthusiasm,  my  will  should  faint 
at  the  first  tragic  experience !  To  think  that  I  meant 
to  conquer  the  world,  and  that  now  I  want  to  beat 
a  retreat  before  this  uncouth  hypocrite !  No,  never!  '^ 
And  it  was  not  long  before.  Tommy-like,  Catd 
had  "found  a  wy''  out  of  the  worst  difficulties. 
The  precept  of  a  "wise  diet  and  self-denial,"  that 
Mrs.  M.-P.  preached  indefatigably  over  the  scant 
meals,  Cato  swallowed  resignedly  with  the  oatmeal 
porridge,  the  herring,  the  boiled  potatoes,  and  the 
mutton  that  appeared  on  the  table  in  unvaried 
repetition.  The  sordidness  of  her  room  she  relieved 
somewhat  by  the  addition  of  a  writing  table,  a  rug, 
and  a  looking-glass,  articles  that  Mrs.  M.-P.  traded 
off  to  her  for  the  promise  that  she  would  teach  little 
Patrick  to  read, — a  duty  that  had  not  been  men- 
tioned in  her  contract.  The  rats  she  frightened  away 
by  befriending  an  enormous  cat,  her  alert  guard 
and  faithful  companion  during  many  dreaiy  hours. 
The  schoolroom  presented  the  most  puzzling 
problem.  In  cold  weather  it  was  dining  room,  par- 
lor, reception  room,  all  in  one,  and  the  teaching 
an  almost  grotesque  performance.  Repeated  polite 
requests  on  Catd's  part  for  a  change  of  conditions 
[118] 


THE  WANDERER 

had  been  disregarded,  and  the  oasis  of  her  life, 
her  teaching  hours,  continued  to  be  disturbed  by 
daily  domestic  squalls  or,  what  was  worse,  by 
Mrs.  M.-P.'s  own  aggressive  pedagogy.  Conditions 
gradually  grew  so  unbearable  that  Catd,  not  know- 
ing how  to  help  herself  in  this  predicament,  was  in 
perfect  despair.  Relief,  fortunately,  came  one  day 
through  the  bursting  forth  of  Catd's  own  Grimm- 
geist,  that  spirit  of  elemental  wrath  which  for  the 
first  time  since  her  babyhood  rose  out  of  its  ante- 
cultural  strata  to  shake  the  vertebrae  of  the  dum- 
founded  adversary.  "You  may  educate  your  chil- 
dren as  you  damn  please,"  Grimmgeist  thundered 
at  the  speechless  red  negligee,  "but  during  lessons 
/  demand  sole  authority  over  them.  If  you  can't 
stop  your  confounded  interference,  and  if  you  won't 
give  me  a  decent,  quiet  place  to  teach  in,  I  shall 
break  my  contract  and  leave  you  to-morrow  in  spite 
of  bad  roads."  And  with  this  the  wrathful  little 
woman  walked  out  of  the  room,  slamming  the  door 
so  that  it  shook  on  its  hinges.  "Never  again  was 
there  any  disturbance  during  school  hours,"  Catd 
triumphantly  used  to  add  when  in  later  years  she 
told  of  this  exciting  occurrence.  Seeing  the  benefi- 
cent results  of  the  fit  of  wrath  into  which  her  peace- 
loving  nature  had  been  betrayed,  she  henceforth 
[119] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

gave  ire  its  rightful  place  on  her  list  of  pedagogi- 
cal disciplines,  and  systematically  applied  it  when- 
ever gentler  means  seemed  ineffective  or  harm- 
ful. "People  in  a  lower  stage  of  development,"  she 
writes,  "you  must  sometimes  fight  with  their  own 
weapons  of  overbeai-ance  and  violence;  to  treat 
them  with  Christian  forbearance  would  only  en- 
courage them  in  their  arrogance  and  so  would  but 
increase  the  sum  of  evil  in  the  world." 

She  who  in  her  maturer  years  felt  such  a  tender 
love  and  reverence  for  the  person  and  teaching  of 
Jesus  of  Nazareth,  at  this  time  fairly  hated  the 
Christian  religion  as  it  appeared  in  the  majority  of 
those  that  professed  it  so  aggressively.  The  atmos- 
phere of  cant  that  seems  to  have  prevailed  around 
the  "majestic  miser"  aroused  Catd's  deepest  indig- 
nation, for  at  bottom  hers  was  a  thoroughly  devout 
nature  and  she  strongly  objected  to  see  religious 
matters  treated  in  a  humdrum,  perfunctory  way. 
"All  through  Sunday,"  she  related,  "Mrs.  M.-P. 
read  out  of  the  Bible  and  presided  over  family 
prayers.  The  house  was  as  quiet  as  the  catacombs; 
nothing  was  heard  all  day  but  that  high,  unctuous 
voice,  reading,  sermonizing,  scolding.  'If  you  have 
to  whistle,  John,  you  will  please  whistle  a  hymn 
tune. . . .  Frouleen,  see  that  the  children  wash  their 
[120] 


THE  WANDERER 

hands  before  they  come  to  evening  prayers. . ,  .Jane, 
you  will  go  to  bed  without  supper  to-night  if  you 
do  not  stop  your  giggling  this  very  minute. . . .  Frou- 
leen,  tell  the  children  a  Bible  story,  but  in  Ger- 
man or  French,  if  you  please,  for  I  don't  want  them 
to  hear  your  poor  English.'"  Such  pious  exhorta- 
tions, reported  by  Catd,  explain  themselves. 

Almost  the  only  ray  of  light  in  this  dark  and  be- 
wildering mountain  world  of  hypocrisy,  arrogance, 
and  sordidness  must  have  been  the  warm  sympathy 
Catd  felt  for  the  children  afflicted  with  such  a 
mother,  and  the  love  these  bore  her  in  return.  Our 
hearts  well  up  tenderly  toward  little  Patrick  who 
one  day  brought  his  beloved  Fraulein  a  beautiful 
apple  that  some  visitor  had  given  him,  refusing 
to  eat  the  rare  luxury  himself.  We  chuckle  with 
Catd  at  witnessing  hungry  little  Jane,  under  cover 
of  the  broad  back  of  her  kind  governess,  lick  her 
plate  at  dinner  with  catlike  velocity.  We  see  Catd 
come  home  from  the  distant  country  store,  her 
pockets  filled  with  good  things  to  eat  for  herself 
and  the  hungry  children.  But  we  like,  above  all,  to 
think  of  her  in  the  "disinfected"  schooh-oom,  sur- 
rounded by  an  eager  group  of  children  "who  study," 
she  says,  "like  little  nailers,  if  only  to  kill  time." 
If  they  are  living  they  may  still  cherish  the  mem- 
[121] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

ory  of  those  hours  in  which  their  masterly  and 
gracious  governess  told  them  stories  about  the 
world's  history,  about  Balder  and  Loki,  Siegfried 
and  Brunhilde,  and  with  pictures  and  games  taught 
them  to  speak  German  and  French. 

The  children,  though  never  likely  to  set  the  river 
afire,  were  very  obedient  and  willing,  and  Catd  re- 
joiced in  the  progress  they  made.  "If  I  could  suc- 
ceed in  fostering  the  growth  of  but  a  few  good 
fruits  on  this  sterile  soil,"  she  says  in  pedagogical 
eagerness,  "I  should  be  as  happy  over  it  as  if  I 
had  gained  brilliant  results  from  the  most  fertile 
ground."  She  was  grieved,  though,  to  find  that  her 
pupils  had  not  the  slightest  inclination  or  talent 
for  music.  "But  how  could  they,"  she  asked,  "be- 
ing brought  up  on  the  howl  of  bagpipes  and  the 
turmoil  of  the  Scotch  reel? — these  capital  crimes 
against  the  holy  spirit  of  St.  Cecilia!  Their  mother 
hears  neither  harmonies  nor  discords,  although  her 
nerves  vibrate  painfully  to  every  strain  in  the  minor 
key.  The  other  day  when  I  played  one  of  Beetho- 
ven's Largos  she  declared  that  the  man  who  could 
compose  that  sort  of  music  must  be  a  very  bilious 
fellow  indeed.  Since  she  insists  that  the  children 
shall  not  learn  anything  but  'lively  tunes  in  the 
major  key,'  my  classical  training  is  entirely  thrown 
[  122  ] 


THE  WANDERER 

away  on  my  pupils The  only  soul  here  who  ap- 
preciates good  music  is  the  pai*son,  but  he,  as  ill 
luck  will  have  it,  wants  to  marry  me.*"  After  this 
rejected  proposal  had  deprived  her  of  her  only  con- 
genial intercourse,  her  spirits  gradually  dropped  to 
the  point  of  lowest  depression.  "I  am  utterly  home- 
sick and  miserable,""  she  wrote  in  December,  "now 
that  nature,  too,  my  tried  comforter,  has  fallen  into 
a  deep  gloom  and  looks  as  if  she  had  taken  the  veil, 
never  to  return  to  a  glad  existence  again.  In  less 
than  a  week  we  shall  have  Christmas,  but  not  the 
slightest  spark  is  kindled  yet  to  receive  the  Christ- 
Icind  and  to  brighten  this  dark  and  wintry  world. 
I  have  to  think  of  you  and  your  joys  not  to  suc- 
cumb. . . .  Oh,  the  poor  children  here,  whom  the 
barren  spirit  of  puritanism  deprives  of  the  most 
beautiful  of  all  children's  festivals,  who  will  never 
be  able  to  feel  the  mystic  life  stirring  in  their  souls 
when  the  glad  season  sets  in ;  who  are  denied  those 
blessed  experiences  and  joys  which  sow  the  seeds 
of  glad  reverence  in  our  hearts  and  which  out  of 
love-takers  make  love-givers. . .  .  Their  only  Christ- 
mas anticipation  was  the  promise  of  a  roast  turkey, 
but  the  beast  sickened  and  to-day  expired;  seldom 
has  the  death  of  an  animal  caused  more  genuine 
grief. . . .  Even  music  does  not  comfort  me,  for  the 
[  123  ] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

piano  is  as  wretchedly  out  of  tune  as  soul  and  sky 
are.  What  has  become  of  my  idealism  that  made  me 
see  the  highest  possibilities  in  the  vocation  of  a 
governess!  I  fairly  hate  it  now!" 

The  season,  however,  did  bring  some  surprises  to 
Catd,  which,  although  wrapped  in  the  gloom  of 
disappointment,  turned  out  to  be  glad  tidings  of  re- 
lief— if  I  may  use  such  serious  language  for  rather 
comic  episodes. 

Christmas  Eve,  when,  after  a  supper  of  mutton 
and  boiled  potatoes,  Catd  in  utter  dejection  had 
retired  to  her  lofty  chamber  and  was  trying  to 
smother  her  grief  under  the  pillows,  she  heard  the 
children  in  evident  excitement  grope  their  way  up 
the  stairs  and  into  her  dark  room.  Mamma  sent 
them,  they  said,  to  bring  their  governess  a  Christ- 
mas present.  Lighting  the  tallow  candle  Catd  saw, 
to  be  sure,  a  tiny  parcel  in  Jessie's  hand,  which 
proved  to  be  a  small  lump  of  chocolate  wrapped  up 
in  tin-foil.  This  token  of  the  miser's  festive  gen- 
erosity so  completely  routed  Catd's  gloom  that,  to 
hide  her  indecent  hilarity,  she  danced  out  of  bed 
and  into  her  clothes,  inviting  the  youngsters  to 
stay  with  her  and  have  some  fiin.  She  got  out  the 
little  presents,  mostly  of  the  kindergarten  sort,  that 
she  had  meant  to  give  them  the  next  morning,  and 
[  124  ] 


THE  WANDERER 

quite  forgot  herself  in  telling  them  fairy  tales  and 
Christmas  legends.  Fairy  stories  set  Mrs.  M.-P.'s 
moral  nerves  on  edge  as  much  as  the  minor  key 
offended  her  aesthetic  sense.  She  had  tabooed  them 
as  "lies,"  and  with  gi*eat  decision  had  forbidden 
Catd  to  indulge  her  heathenish  fondness  for  them 
with  the  children.  Hearing  indirectly  of  Catd's  dis- 
obedience, she  severely  sermonized  the  ungoverna- 
ble governess,  and  seeing  on  the  same  sacred  Sab- 
bath that  Catd,  in  the  presence  of  the  innocent 
children,  calmly  set  herself  down  to  read  a  profane 
novel  {Ivanhoe,  in  this  case)  she  made  a  "scene." 
On  the  strength  of  this  obnoxious  performance  dis- 
gusted Catd  gave  notice  and  prepared  to  leave  in 
April  instead  of  June  as  she  had  planned.  "After 
having  made  every  attempt,"  she  wrote,  "to  render 
my  position  here  more  dignified,  the  duty  of  self- 
respect  forces  me  to  give  up  this  thankless  task." 

In  a  letter  to  her  father  dated  January,  1874, 
she  declares  that  she  is  still  body  and  soul  a  teacher 
(Schulmeister),  and  that  she  will  not  allow  the 
narrow-mindedness  of  the  English  to  scare  her  away 
from  practicing  her  beloved  vocation.  "After  I  have 
enjoyed  some  halcyon  months  in  Germany  and 
have  helped  you  celebrate  your  silver  wedding," 
she  wrote  him,  "I  want  to  go  to  France,  if  I  can  get 
[  125] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

a  position  there.  Political  hostilities  shall  not  pre- 
vent me. . . .  From  the  following  you  will  see  that 
my  'soaring  ideals'  have  changed  into  very  prac- 
tical schemes.  I  am  sure  that  if  I  perfect  myself  in 
French  I  can  claim  a  hundred-pound  position  in 
England;  these  English  pounds  I  mean  to  help  me 
carry  out  a  long-cherished  plan  which  you  doubt- 
less will  approve.  I  have  come  to  the  conclusion  that 
the  narrowing  and  humiliating  life  of  a  governess 
is  extremely  distasteful  to  me,  chiefly  because  this 
office  yields  neither  the  authority  nor  the  independ- 
ence which  is  needed  for  the  exercise  of  one'*s  best 
power.  My  plan  is  this :  to  go  to  Leipzig  as  soon  as 
I  have  saved  enough  money,  and  to  devote  myself 
to  the  study  of  music  exclusively,  so  as  to  be  able 
at  some  future  time  to  settle  in  one  of  the  large 
German  cities  as  a  private  teacher  of  music  and 
modem  languages.  Do  not  think,  please,  that  this 
decision  is  born  from  a  sudden  whim  of  mine.  You 
know  that  my  predilection  for  the  study  of  music, 
though  suppressed  at  times  by  other  studies,  always 
has  been  pronounced.  I  merely  return  to  my  fa- 
vorite now  that  I  have  acquired  a  fair  basis  of  gen- 
eral culture.  My  motive  is  a  genuine  love  for  the  art 
of  all  arts,  as  well  as  a  hope  for  greater  independ- 
ence. The  musical  education  that  I  have  had  so  far 
[126] 


THE  WANDERER 

makes  me  but  a  mediocre  teacher  of  music,  such  as 
the  universe  harbors  too  plentifully  already;  by 
a  two  years'  exclusive  devotion  to  this  art  I  hope 
to  raise  myself  above  mediocrity.  I  feel  sure  that 
a  wish  bred  from  sensible  and  pure  motives,  as 
this  one  of  mine  is,  will  be  fulfilled  some  day, 
though,  maybe,  at  a  different  time  and  in  a  differ- 
ent manner  from  what  I  expected  at  the  outset." 

What  sense  and  wisdom  in  a  girl  barely  twenty 
years  old,  and  what  a  model  young  woman  Catd 
would  have  made  if  that  old  head  of  hers  had 
always  ruled  her  actions!  Fortunately — for  the 
biographer  at  least — there  was  a  will,  too,  an  im- 
petuous young  will,  that  at  times  heeded  neither 
paradoxes  nor  inconsistencies,  and  that,  rushing  to 
its  goal,  often  upset  the  most  neatly  constructed 
card  houses  of  her  mind.  In  this  instance  it  made 
her  go  to  London  as  soon  as  her  "prison  doors" 
opened,  and  there  caused  her,  in  less  than  a  fort- 
night, to  spend  the  money  she  had  earned  during 
her  "years  of  slavery," — money  for  which  she  had 
planned  such  dignified  uses.  The  proposition  to 
visit  the  metropolis  had  come  from  a  cousin  of  hers, 
a  woman  whom  a  cruelly  grotesque  accident  had 
robbed  of  her  great  beauty  and  high  social  inter- 
course, and  who  from  the  heights  of  artistic  sue- 
[  127] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 
cess  gradually  fell  into  the  very  gutters  of  social 
existence.  She  was  at  the  beginning  of  her  decline 
just  then  and  craved  excitement  to  forget  her  mis- 
ery. With  this  desperate  but  intellectually  distin- 
guished person  Catd  "did"  London.  They  were  "on 
the  go"  from  early  morning  until  after  midnight, 
Catd  filling  her  stai-ved  senses  with  all  the  sights 
and  sounds  they  could  hold  and  London  could 
offer.  They  visited  palaces  and  slums,  Patti  concerts 
and  Salvation  Army  meetings.  They  heard  Messrs. 
Moody  and  Sankey  harangue  a  vast  multitude  in 
Haymarket  Theatre  and  saw  Captain  Bojrton  of 
the  New  Jersey  Life-Saving  Service  float  down 
the  Thames  in  his  inflated  rubber  dress,  the  Amer- 
ican flag  triumphantly  strapped  to  his  foot.  They 
lunched  at  the  Three  Tuns  Tavern  and  supped  at 
the  Old  Cheshire  Cheese.  In  proper  elegance  they 
drove  through  Hyde  Park  in  a  hansom,  and  per- 
haps the  same  day  enjoyed  London  from  the  top 
of  an  omnibus. 

The  cousin  was  as  enamored  of  England  as 
Catd  was  prejudiced  against  it,  and  the  superior 
insight  which  the  older  woman  could  bring  to  their 
hot  discussions  of  English  institutions  and  idio- 
syncrasies helped  Catd  to  get  a  truer  perspective  of 
Albion  than  her  own  stifled  existence  among  the 
[128] 


THE  WANDERER 

Scottish  gentry  had  given  her.  Before  she  left  the 
country,  never  to  return  to  it  again,  she  was  ready 
to  own,  not  only  that  the  English  were  a  great 
nation,  but  that  individually  they  could  bear  com- 
parison with  their  German  cousins.  In  regard  to 
her  own  special  grievance  she  came  to  the  con- 
clusion that,  on  the  whole,  English  ladies  were  "jus- 
tified in  their  peculiar  treatment  of  governesses,  be- 
cause so  many  ill-bred  and  uneducated  women  had 
smuggled  themselves  into  the  profession." 


[129] 


XVIII 

FROM  the  letter  quoted  in  the  last  chapter  one 
surely  would  have  expected  to  find  the  ven- 
turesome wanderer  struggling  for  French  and  new 
experiences  in  hostile  France.  But  it  was  to  the 
opposite  direction  that  she  turned, — to  the  border 
of  Russia,  where  she  had  secured  a  position  in  the 
family  of  a  high  German  army  officer.  A  relative  of 
hers.  His  Excellency  the  Director  of  the  Botanical 
Gardens  in  St.  Petersburg,  urged  her  at  this  junc- 
ture to  visit  his  family  before  going  to  her  post  in 
Esthland,  and  she  started  east  in  August,  1874. 

On  her  way  she  stopped  at  Hannover  to  freshen 
valued  associations  with  old  haunts  and  old  friends. 
Sorely  disappointed  in  the  latter, — whose  early  in- 
tellectual aspirations  she  saw  dwindling  away  under 
the  sway  of  "frivolous  occupations"  such  as  hus- 
band hunting  and  fancywork,  novel-reading  and 
small  talk, — she  neglected  their  society  and  sought 
inspiration  in  theater  and  concert  hall  instead. 
From  the  Flying  Dutchman,  which  she  heard  on 
a  Sunday  evening,  she  flew  off^  to  the  train.  Reach- 
ing Berlin  the  next  morning,  by  third  class  of 
course,  she  stopped  to  see  the  sights,  to  have  her 
passport  indorsed  in  the  Russian  Embassy  (where 
[  130] 


THE  WANDERER 

she  was  advised  with  paternal  interest  to  exchange 
her  oil-cloth  sailor  of  nihilistic  appearance  for  a 
regular  woman's  hat),  and  to  hear  Wagner's  Wal- 
Tciire  for  the  first  time.  Without  taking  off  her 
clothes  (this  was  the  second  night  she  had  kept  them 
on)  she  slept  a  couple  of  hours,  and  "not  feeling  the 
least  bit  tired,"  as  she  assured  her  family,  set  out  on 
her  journey  to  St.  Petersburg. 

Her  letters  and  notes  show  that  from  her  win- 
dow seat,  which  she  procured  before  anybody  else 
got  a  chance,  she  eagerly  took  in  everything  about 
her,  from  the  looks  and  idiosyncrasies  of  her  fellow 
travelei's  to  the  changing  panorama  outside.  At  the 
Russian  frontier  she  laughed  over  the  Babel  of 
tongues  and  over  the  violent  smack  of  Russian 
kisses.  Encouragingly  she  nodded  to  the  owner  of 
the  "tremendous  paws"  which  in  the  custom  house 
dived  into  her  trunk  and  then,  to  her  surprised  de- 
light, carefully  smoothed  her  crumpled  clothes.  In 
the  restaurant  her  attention  was  especially  attracted 
by  the  big,  shining  samovars  on  the  sideboard,  and 
by  the  waiters  in  white  aprons  and  high  top-boots, 
who  brought  savory  dishes  kept  hot  on  little  indi- 
vidual alcohol  lamps.  The  Russian  trains,  with  their 
compartmentless  parlor  cars  furnished  with  long 
benches  for  sleep  and  warmed  by  a  stove  in  the  cen- 
[131] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

ter,  satisfied  her  social  sense,  while  the  wretched  vil- 
lages past  which  they  flew,  and  the  miserable  women 
who,  at  the  smaller  stations,  waved  their  flag  signals, 
made  her  realize  with  a  shock*  that  even  but  a  few 
miles  from  the  frontier  the  civilized  conditions  of 
Germany  were  left  behind.  "Our  pigs  are  better 
housed  than  the  peasants  here,"  she  wrote  to  a  friend, 
"although  our  churches  can't  boast  of  gilded  domes. 
. . .  When  I  expressed  to  my  neighbor,  an  interest- 
ing young  Russian,  my  astonishment  at  this  sudden 
transition,  he  assured  me  that  a  new  time  was  dawn- 
ing for  Russia,  that  there  was  an  increasing  num- 
ber of  educated  Russians  ready  to  give  their  life- 
blood  to  help  their  nation  out  of  the  mire  into 
which  Father  Tsar  and  Mother  Church  had  pushed 
it.  'Fifty  years  hence,"'  he  said,  'all  this  wretched- 
ness will  be  no  more;  the  Russian  peasants  will  be 
educated  like  their  more  fortunate  German  breth- 
ren, and  instead  of  this  ghastly  array  of  hovels  in 
a  desert  land  you  will  see  snug  cottages  surrounded 
by  fertile  fields  and  rich  orchards.'"  How  this  won- 
derful metamorphosis  was  to  be  accomplished  the 
young  enthusiast  evidently  did  not  tell  Catd;  nor 
did  she  trouble  her  mind  much  about  that.  At  that 

*  The  author  has  noticed  with  interest  that  Russian  travelers  on  their 
part  experience  a  like  shock.  (Cf.  Memoirs  of  a  Revolutionist,  by 
Prince  Kropotkin,  page  268,  Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.) 

[  132] 


THE  WANDERER 

time  social  and  political  problems  filled  her  with 
vital  interest  only  when  she  encountered  them  in 
her  own  field  of  work,  in  the  guise  of  educational 
reforms.  If  she  had  discovered  that  her  traveling 
companion  was  a  nihilist — and  such  he  probably 
was — her  sane  nature  would  have  recoiled  from 
him  as  from  something  unsound  and  pernicious. 
Prejudiced  as  she  was  against  all  revolutionists,  she 
would  have  been  little  affected  by  the  fact  that 
Prince  Kropotkin,  a  short  time  before  her  journey, 
had  been  thrown  into  the  living  grave  of  the  Peter 
and  Paul  Prison.  Nor  would  she  have  wasted  much 
sympathy  on  the  vast  number  of  Kropotkin's  fel- 
low workers  whom  Alexander  II,  or  rather  his 
"bloodhounds"  (Shuwdloff*  and  Trepdff),  had  sen- 
tenced to  imprisonment,  death,  or  Siberia.  The 
summer  of  1874,  the  "mad"  summer,  had  been  more 
than  usually  full  of  political  arrests,  but  when  Catd 
came  to  Russia,  "all  was  quiet  in  St.  Petersburg." 
So,  with  the  unconcern  of  a  happy  child,  Catd 
could  give  herself  up  to  the  fullest  enjoyment  of  all 
the  new  impressions  that  through  her  insatiable 
sense  of  sight  crowded  in  upon  her.  In  later  years 
her  eyes  used  to  glisten  whenever  she  indulged 
in  reminiscences  of  St.  Petersburg's  golden-domed 
splendor.  She  often  told  how  she  had  walked  or 
[133] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

driven  in  the  Nevski  Prospect  — the  "Corso"  of 
St.  Petersburg  — in  order  to  feel  the  throbbing  and 
generously  open  life  of  this  youngest  and  most  vigor- 
ous of  all  the  European  capitals;  how  she  stood 
for  hours  at  a  time  on  the  large  wooden  bridge 
of  the  Neva,  watching  the  picturesque  carriages  of 
the  aristocrats  pass  back  and  foi*th  between  the 
"Islands"  and  the  city;  how  she  had  thrilled  with 
pleasure  at  the  view  of  the  stately  river  itself  with 
its  wreath  of  magnificent  buildings,  among  them 
the  Winter  Palace  and  its  lugubrious  opposite,  the 
Peter  and  Paul  Fortress.  Broad  Neva,  with  its  heavy 
burdens  lightly  carried,  its  ever  widening  course, 
and  its  generous  embrace  of  the  near  Baltic,  always 
remained  to  her  a  symbol  of  all  that  was  large  and 
free  and  promising.  She  sometimes  spent  her  even- 
ings in  the  wonderful  Botanical  Gardens, — a  crea- 
tion of  her  uncle's, — or  in  the  park  swarming  with 
life,  far  into  the  short  dusk  of  early  morning.  "  Oh, 
the  indescribable  charm  of  these  northern  nights,*" 
she  wi'ote  in  the  florid  style  that  is  characteristic 
of  her  at  this  period;  "it  is  as  if  Uranos  could  not 
tear  himself  away  from  Gaea''s  beauty  and  there- 
fore implored  Night  not  to  hide  his  glorious  bride 
under  dark  wings.  In  such  nights  nature  sings  her 
most  beautiful  hymns :  magic  songs  composed  of  the 
[   134] 


THE  WANDERER 

soft  patter  of  petals,  the  perfiime  of  roses,  the  joy- 
ful voices  of  birds,  the  rippling  of  brooks.  Scarcely 
has  the  haze  of  dusk  touched  the  fields  when  the 
sun  of  a  new  day  bursts  out  from  the  east.*" 

An  interesting  episode  of  these  eventful  days 
seems  to  have  been  the  advent  of  her  prized  box 
of  books  which  had  been  held  back  at  the  frontier 
for  the  mysterious  purposes  of  the  Russian  censor- 
ship brush.  On  opening  it  she  found  that  whole 
pages  in  her  volumes  on  history,  especially  Russian 
history,  had  been  "deluged  with  the  blackest  and 
densest  of  printer's  inks.  This  is  the  way,""  she  re- 
marks, "in  which  a  paternal  government  tries  to 
hide  from  the  knowledge  of  its  subjects  any  facts 
which  could  enlighten  the  children  of  the  Tsar  about 
his  and  his  predecessors'  'fatherly  love'  for  their 
people.  What  a  betrayal  is  this  muffling  of  the 
living  truth! — for  the  pitch-dark  blots  certainly 
reveal  more  than  letters  could.  I  am  glad  to  see, 
though,  that  they  have  had  sense  enough  not  to 
put  up  a  flag  of  mourning  over  the  glorious  deeds 
of  Peter  the  Great." 

Another  welcome  occurrence  was  a  letter  from 
Catd's  prospective  employer  in  Esthland  request- 
ing her  to  postpone  her  coming  for  three  months. 
Independent  Catd,  who  already  dreaded  the  two 
[  135  ] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

*' evils"  she  was  to  meet  in  this  position — the 
loneliness  of  a  country  life  and  a  religious  atmos- 
phere, two  things  she  had  learned  to  abhor  in 
Scotland — annulled  her  contract  at  once.  About 
one  of  her  attempts  to  get  another  position  she  used 
to  tell  amusingly.  It  seems  that  through  her  rel- 
atives she  got  an  introduction  to  a  Russian  prin- 
cess who  wanted  a  German  governess  for  one  of  her 
daughters,  and  who  appointed  an  hour  when  Catd 
should  present  herself.  "It  was  the  first  time  dur- 
ing my  plebeian  existence,*"  she  related,  "that  I  was 
granted  an  audience  with  a  real  royal  highness.  Of 
course  I  had  no  idea  of  court  etiquette,  and  I  was 
considerably  flustered  when  the  great  day  came.  In 
the  secrecy  of  my  room  I  had  assiduously  practiced 
making  court  bows  such  as  I  had  seen  on  the  stage. 
Besides,  I  took  unusual  pains  with  my  toilet, — put 
on  my  best  bib  and  tucker  and  even  replaced  the 
feather  in  my  Berlin  hat.  In  spite  of  all  this  there 
must  have  been  something  funny  about  my  appear- 
ance,— though  this  did  not  occur  to  me  until  I  was 
safe  at  home  again, — for  the  Swiss  guard  who  opened 
the  door  of  my  carriage,  as  weU  as  the  liveried  lackeys 
who  conducted  me  to  the  state  apartment,  looked 
amused.  I  had  scarcely  settled  myself  in  one  of  the 
gilt  chairs,  when  the  great  lady,  a  languid,  slender, 
[  136] 


THE  WANDERER 

swaying  body,  entered.  I  popped  up  to  pop  down 
again  instantly  in  the  way  I  had  practiced.  Look- 
ing up  after  my  performance  I  saw  Her  Highness 
smiling  behind  her  handkerchief.  'Mais,  ma  petite,'' 
she  said  when  she  had  composed  herself,  'vous  etes 
tropjeune,  tropjeu7ie;je  ne  comprends  comment^ . . . 
and  without  another  word  she  graciously  intimated 
by  gesture  and  look  that  I  was  dismissed  and  that 
I  need  not  go  through  my  polite  gymnastics  again. 
So  I  merely  made  a  short  military  bow,  which 
seemed  to  upset  the  lady  again,  and  by  the  help  of 
the  smiling  footmen  and  the  grinning  guard  was 
back  in  my  carriage  five  minutes  after  I  had  left  it." 

Two  weeks  after  this  her  first  and  last  contact 
with  the  world  of  high-caste  ceremonial,  she  was  on 
her  way  to  the  Caucasus.  The  position  had  been  of- 
fered to  her  by  telegram,  and  she  had  accepted  it  in 
the  same  way  without  knowing  anything  about  the 
circumstances  but  that,  for  the  salary  of  six  hun- 
dred rubles  and  a  home,  she  was  expected  to  teach 
German  and  music  to  the  children  of  a  Russian 
government  official  in  Tiflis. 

Again  her  passion  for  traveling  had  got  the  bet- 
ter of  her  serious  purposes  in  life.  With  Faust  she 
might  well  exclaim,  as  she  did  in  one  of  her  letters: 
"*Alas,  there  dwell  two  souls  within  my  breast!' 
[  137] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

The  one  longs  for  the  quiet  work  of  the  educator 
and  warns  me  not  to  rush  headlong  into  this  un- 
known world;  the  other  drives  me  on  irresistibly  to 
see  the  glorious  Orient." 


[138] 


XIX 

HAVING,  as  she  says,  fitted  herself  out  with 
the  best  of  luggage  for  this  trip, — a  large 
portion  of  good  humor  and  pluck  spiced  with  the 
knowledge  of  a  few  pat  Russian  phrases, — Cato 
boarded  the  Odessa  express  on  a  bitterly  cold 
October  evening.  With  intense  pleasure  and  ex- 
citement she  looked  forward  to  her  week's  journey 
through  strange  and  beautiful  lands,  and  not  the 
slightest  misgiving  clouded  her  joy  of  expectancy. 
Calmly  she  listened  to  the  commiserations  and  crit- 
ical comments  that  her  talkative  traveling  com- 
panions, after  an  inadvertent  disclosure  of  her 
destination,  showered  upon  her  in  thi-ee  languages. 
"Tiflis?""  shouted  one;  "isn't  that  a  place  beyond 
the  Caspian  Sea.?"  "No,"  corrected  another,  "but 
it's  a  robbers'  haunt,  nevertheless."  "Why,"  said 
a  third,  "how  inexcusable  to  let  one  so  young  go 
among  those  savages  all  alone ! "  Only  Cato's  taciturn 
neighbor,  whom  the  obsequious  conductor  called 
^^  Madame  la  Baronne^  and  who  smoked  ten  ciga- 
rettes in  one  sitting,  puffed  her  approval  of  the 
courage  of  'Ha petite ^  "With  a  reassuring  smile," 
Catd  used  to  relate,  "she  offered  me  some  of  her 
choice  nicotine  and  ordered  her  maid  to  bring  us 
[  139] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

Madeira.  This  was  a  signal  for  the  other  ladies  to 
dive  into  their  provisions,  and  in  their  turn  pro- 
duce some  liquid  that  would  fittingly  flavor  the 
hearty  'hon  voyage''  with  which  they  all  drank  to 
me. . . .  What  a  simple,  hospitable,  companionable 
race  the  Russians  are,  and  how  cruelly  the  despotic 
government  misrepresents  the  true  genius  of  the 
people. ...  I  soon  felt  quite  at  home  among  these 
thoroughly  human  creatures,  who  chatted  with  me 
(some  of  them  through  an  interpreter)  as  if  they 
had  known  me  all  their  lives.  . . .  The  only  thing 
that  I  can''t  as  yet  get  accustomed  to,"  the  reserved 
Northerner  wrote  home,  "is  the  Russian  predilec- 
tion for  kisses  and  embraces.  What  an  exuberant 
demonstration  of  these  at  every  station!"  She  got 
her  share  of  it,  it  seems,  when  she  reached  Moscow, 
where  she  changed  trains  and  took  leave  of  her 
kindly  companions  of  the  night. 

In  her  impatience  to  get  a  glimpse  of  "Matushka 
Maskwd"  (little  mother  Moscow)  which  her  fancy 
had  surrounded  with  a  halo  of  romance,  she  has- 
tened into  the  streets  as  soon  as  the  train  stopped, 
to  take  in  all  she  possibly  could  during  the  two 
hours  that  she  had  at  her  disposal.  Finding  that 
walking  on  the  "execrable  Asiatic"  pavement  was 
a  slow  process,  she  took  a  drosky,  ordering  the 
[  140  ] 


THE  WANDERER 

caftaned  Iswoshtshik  to  drive  her  up  to  the  Krem- 
lin. From  this  famous  capitol  she  knew  she  could 
get  a  bird's-eye  view  of  the  resplendent  city, — that 
general  impression  that  her  mind  craved  before  it 
could  find  satisfaction  in  details.  The  barbaric 
splendor  of  the  picture  spreading  before  her — the 
fantastic  shapes  of  the  white- walled  Asiatic  city  and 
the  gay  and  motley  coloring  of  its  buildings  blend- 
ing with  the  luster  of  countless  crosses  on  the  gilded, 
green,  or  blue  cupolas  of  Moscow's  four  hundred  odd 
churches — must  have  fascinated  her,  for  she  lin- 
gered so  long  that  she  escaped  missing  her  train  by 
one  second.  Such  little  adventures  are  never  men- 
tioned in  her  letters  to  her  anxious  relatives,  who 
only  learned  from  her  that  in  Moscow  "every  fourth 
house  is  a  church."  In  her  notes  she  is  more  com- 
municative as  regards  both  facts  and  fancies.  Here 
she  also  put  down  the  gist  of  her  quick  obsei-vations 
in  an  apt  comparison  of  the  two  Russian  capitals. 
"St.  Petersburg,"  she  wrote,  "is  like  a  smart  mili- 
tary officer  covered  with  brilliant  decorations,  while 
Moscow  rather  resembles  a  venerable  Eastern  patri- 
arch arrayed  in  sumptuous  robes." 

After  her  short  but  all  the  more  inspiring  visit 
to  this  gay,  jeweled  bit  of  the  "Orient,"  the  bleak 
steppe  that  spreads  out  between  Moscow  and  Odessa 
[  141  ] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 
seemed  only  the  more  desolate.  "Nothing  to  be 
seen  for  days,'"  she  sighed, "  but  a  dead,  leaden  sky  un- 
der which  there  are  immense  stretches  of  yellowish 
grass  or  of  snow  dotted  with  croaking  ravens." 

All  her  interest  now  was  concentrated  on  the 
people  about  her,  whose  languages,  customs,  and 
physiognomies  more  and  more  reflected  the  con- 
glomerate of  nations  and  climes  which  the  Russian 
empire  represents.  "From  Kiev  on,""  she  reported, 
"there  was  no  ladies'  compartment,  and  civilization 
became  chimerical.  Women  and  men,  Aryans  and 
Mongols,  crowded  in  together  and  smoked  side  by 
side.  Jews  in  caftans  and  Gentiles  in  sheepskins 
appeared,  and  among  them  a  number  of  the  genus 
*  long-fingers.'  After  several  things  had  mysteri- 
ously disappeared,  I  took  the  precaution  to  spread 
over  my  traps  with  my  whole  body  so  as  not  to  get 
out  of  touch  with  them." 

During  the  fourth  night  she  reached  Odessa, 
*'a  beautifully  situated,  but  horribly  dirty  city  of 
Jews,"  where  she  had  to  stay  until  the  next  after- 
noon before  she  could  board  the  Black  Sea  steamer 
for  Poti. "  A  host  of  grimy  and  greasy  hotel-keepers, 
all  of  Aaron's  tribe,"  she  wrote,  "fell  upon  my  poor 
Christian  body  before  I  had  fairly  got  out  of  the 
train.  They  fawned  on  me  as  if  I  had  been  the 
[  142  ] 


THE  WANDERER 

golden  calf,  jabbering  German,  gesticulating,  whin- 
ing, each  one  forswearing  his  soul  and  calling  on 
God  the  All-Just  to  witness  that  he  had  the  clean- 
est, the  cheapest,  the  most  elegant  rooms  to  offer.  I 
shouted  to  them  in  plainest  German  that  I  wished 
to  be  let  alone;  I  turned  my  back  on  them  and 
walked  off;  but  all  was  of  no  avail, — like  angry 
magpies  they  swarmed  about  me,  skipping  and 
gabbling.  Then  I  got  furious,  and  beckoned  to 
some  mounted  Cossacks  I  espied  in  the  distance. 
This  helped.  In  one  instant  my  persecutors  had 
vanished  as  if  by  magic,  and  I  put  myself  into  the 
care  of  the  polite,  though  grim  gendarmes." 

Next  day  she  was  on  the  Black  Sea,  desperately 
sick  at  first  and  "creeping  on  all  fours"  because  of 
a  storm  that  made  the  steamer  bounce  "like  an 
electrified  dragon's  tail.''  But  she  soon  revived,  to 
revel  in  the  legendary  and  historic  associations 
about  her,  in  the  beauty  of  nature  and  clime,  in  the 
rich  mosaic  of  life  on  the  steamer.  The  steerage 
especially,  with  its  picturesque  inmates,  fascinated 
her.  "Here  were  Turks  praying  and  bowing  to  Al- 
lah at  intervals ;  fierce-looking  Caucasians  smoking 
delicate  cigarettes;  Russians  with  ^nitshewo*  writ- 
ten on  their  heavy  faces;  lazy  Greeks,  cunning  Ar- 
menians; and  running  between  the  groups  of  men, 
[  1*3  ] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

half-naked  children  and  ragged,  haggard  women." 
Being  the  only  woman  passenger  in  the  cabin, 
Catd  became  the  object  of  much  gallantry  on  the 
part  of  her  French,  Polish,  Russian,  Armenian,  and 
Georgian  fellow  travelers.  But  so  insensible  was 
she  to  the  privilege  of  their  company  and  atten- 
tions— even  to  the  roses  stolen  for  her  by  a  Cau- 
casian prince  fi'om  the  imperial  gardens  at  Yalta — 
that  she  politely  refused  their  escort  during  the 
long  halts  which  the  "General  Kotzebue''  made  at 
Sebastopol,  Feodosia,  Kertsch,  and  Suchum  Kaleh. 
Amusingly  she  told  afterwards  how  an  infatuated 
German  youth,  arrayed  in  "stovepipe"  and  "flam- 
ing'' kid  gloves,  tried  to  attach  himself  to  her  for 
a  walk  in  Sebastopol,  and  how  she  got  rid  of  him 
by  climbing  uphill  over  such  steep  and  jagged 
cliffs  as  his  new  elegance  forbade  him  to  attempt. 
"Without  any  burdensome  attachment,"  she  re- 
lates, "I  wandered  about  among  the  ruins  of  the 
demolished  fortress,  the  Tauris  of  old,  where  in  bar- 
baric antiquity  Iphigenia  shed  the  blood  of  stran- 
gers in  honor  of  Artemis,  and  where  but  twenty 
years  ago  the  'most  Christian'  nations  slew  each 
other  in  the  name  of  Christian  civilization.  Chmb- 
ing  up  to  the  ruins  of  a  Greek  temple  I  sat  down 
on  the  luxuriant  grass  that  covered  the  rubbish 
[  144  ] 


THE  WANDERER 

heaps  and  furnished  food  to  a  number  of  goats 
grazing  near  me.  From  here  I  could  gaze  over  the 
vast  heap  of  sad  ruins, — of  sacked  streets  with  here 
and  there  an  isolated  new  house  rising  from  among 
them, — and  I  could  also  watch  the  busy  life  of  the 

shore,  promising  new  growth  and  wealth What 

a  sermon  of  alternating  life  and  decay  a  place  like 
this  preaches !  Over  the  ruins  of  antiquity  lie  those 
of  modem  times;  the  future  will  rise  triumphantly 
above  them  both,  only  to  be  made  part  of  the  com- 
mon ash  heap  when  its  turn  comes. . . . 

"At  last  we  came  to  the  gloriously  romantic  coast 
of  mighty  Caucasus.  Glaciers  glistening  in  the  sun- 
shine rose  against  the  deep  blue  of  the  sky;  range 
after  range  of  jagged  mountains  towered  in  the 
distance;  rugged  cliffs  rose  abruptly  from  the  sea, 
all  of  them  densely  covered  with  the  wonders  of 
southern  vegetation  and  touched  by  the  glow  of 
autumn.  Innumerable  dolphins  played  about  the 
boat,  spurting  up  crystal  sprays  from  the  blue 
ocean. . .  .  One  of  the  rocks  near  Gagry  was  pointed 
out  to  me  as  the  very  bed  of  torture  on  which, 
according  to  the  Greek  legend,  Prometheus,  the  fa- 
ther of  man,  was  chained  by  wrathful  Zeus,*  . . , 


*  From  here   on,  this   account  tries  to   reproduce  what  Fraulein 
Wenckebach  has  told  the  author  personally. 


[    145   ] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

In  Suchum  Kaleh,  our  one  Caucasian  landing  place 
before  Poti,  where  the  steamer  rested  two  hours,  I 
adventurously  walked  into  the  market  place  which 
was  heaped  with  the  most  luscious  grapes  I  have 
ever  tasted.  I  handed  a  small  silver  coin  to  one  of 
the  old  sales- witches,  whereupon  she  gave  me  such 
an  abundance  of  fruit  that  I  had  to  leave  more  than 
half  of  it  behind.  With  my  load  I  sat  down  in  the 
grass  by  a  well  in  the  main  thoroughfare,  and  while 
I  devoured  my  grapes  I  looked  out  on  the  strange 
shapes  of  men  and  women  passing  me, — Amazons, 
some  of  them  with  babies  strapped  on  their  backs, 
astride  of  awkward  but  fiery  little  horses;  Lesghians 
in  the  traditional  bourkas  (capes)  and  high  conical 
fur  caps;  stalwart  Cossacks  in  picturesque  attire. 
How  long  I  may  have  looked  at  this  living  picture- 
book  I  don't  know;  but  I  suddenly  noticed  that 
darkness  was  setting  in  with  uncompromising  quick- 
ness. Of  course  I  immediately  started  in  the  direc- 
tion of  the  shore,  but  soon  lost  my  way.  In  sudden 
realization  of  my  daring  I  tore  through  the  totally 
dark  streets,  falling  in  to  the  mud  pits  and  stumbling 
over  the  heaps  of  rubbish  and  stones.  As  I  did  not 
see  how  I  should  ever  escape  out  of  this  labyrinth, 
I  i-ushed  into  the  first  lighted  house  I  saw.  Here  I 
found  a  fur-capped  Caucasian  baker  squatted  down 
[  146  ] 


THE  WANDERER 

among  his  wares  in  an  open-air  shop  window.  For 
all  the  German,  French,  English,  Russian  idioms 
that  I  showered  at  him,  together  with  some  silver 
coins,  he  could  offer  nothing  in  return  but  a  large 
loaf  of  bread  and  a  volume  of  unintelligible  sounds 
accompanied  by  frantic  gesticulations  in  the  direc- 
tion of  his  loaves.  There  was  nothing  to  be  done 
but  try  again  somewhere  else.  So,  groping  my  way 
along  the  houses,  I  stopped  at  another  lighted  shop 
window.  Here  I  scarcely  had  opened  my  mouth 
when  a  turbaned  giant  rushed  upon  me  with  a  dag- 
ger, frightening  me  into  a  quick  run.  Although  it 
soon  dawned  upon  me  that  my  dagger-man  was  but 
a  harmless  hair-cutter  armed  with  a  huge  pair  of 
scissors,  I  began  to  be  seriously  alarmed  and  to  re- 
proach myself  for  forgetting  that  I  was  an  unpro- 
tected female  and  so  ought  not  to  have  tried  to 
study  Asiatic  civilization  at  its  source.  As  if  to  pun- 
ish myself  then  and  there  for  my  transgressions,  I 
fell  into  a  deep  pit  and  actually  groveled  in  dust 
and  ashes.  But  from  the  depth  of  this  very  pit  I 
heard  a  sound  which  to  my  anxious  heart  was  like 
a  note  of  heavenly  music, — a  steamer  whistling  in 
the  darkness  ahead  of  me !  I  clambered  out  and  made 
off  in  the  direction  of  the  welcome  sound  as  fast 
as  my  shaking  limbs  would  go.  How  I  got  on  the 
[  1*7] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

steamer  I  scarcely  remember,  but  the  exasperated 
captain  assured  me  with  angry  expostulations  that 
he  had  held  the  steamer  an  hour  for  me  already,  and 
that  he  was  just  about  to  take  in  the  gang  plank 
when  I  appeared.  I  determined  that,  henceforth, 
I  would  try  hard  to  combine  my  curiosity  with 
caution." 

And  so  she  apparently  did,  for  without  further 
adventure  she  traveled  through  the  woods  of  Circe 
and  the  land  of  the  Golden  Fleece,  arriving  in 
Tiflis  on  the  twelfth  day  after  her  departure  from 
St.  Petersburg. 


[148] 


XX 

<«  A  LTHOUGH  I  arrived  here  at  midnight,"  Catd 
.Zm.  reported  home,  "Babushka  (this  is  what  the 
whole  household  calls  Madame  de  X's  kind  old 
mother)  was  up  to  welcome  nie.  The  warm  embrace 
she  gave  me,  the  rich  meal  served  to  me  at  that 
late  hour,  the  large  basket  of  roses  which  I  found 
in  my  cosy  room,  all  told  me  that  in  my  new 
surroundings  I  need  not  fear  a  repetition  of  my 
experiences  in  Scotland.  Although  I  might  have 
known  that  the  genus  Mutton-Potts  does  not  grow 
on  Russian  soil,  I  felt  immensely  relieved,  neverthe- 
less, slept  soundly,  and  was  up  early  next  morning 
to  look  about  me." 

And  she  opened  her  eyes  wide  indeed  at  the  lux- 
ury around  her,  at  the  Oriental  splendor  of  the 
rooms,  at  the  countless  servants.  Hearing  that  the 
nine  children,  aged  from  two  to  twelve,  had  as  many 
as  six  tutors  and  governesses,  she  wondered  if  any- 
thing could  be  left  for  her  to  do.  Madame  de  X, 
a  very  cold,  but  exceedingly  beautiful  woman  of 
Caucasian  blood,  soon  reassured  her  on  this  point. 
"You  will  rise  at  seven,"  she  told  her,  "and  be  pre- 
sent when  the  little  boys  are  dressed.  From  eight 
to  twelve  you  will  give  your  music  lessons.  From 
[  149  ] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

two  to  four  I  want  you  to  walk  with  some  of  the 
children,  and  talk  German  to  them.  After  the  five 
o'clock  dinner  you  will  play  kindergarten  games 
with  the  younger  ones  and  help  Wera  and  the  three 
older  boys  with  their  lessons.  At  half  past  nine  you 
are  free  to  do  what  you  choose,  and  two  evenings 
of  the  week  you  will  have  entirely  at  your  own  dis- 
posal. I  shall  also  expect  you  to  furnish  part  of  the 
musical  entertainment  at  my  receptions,  but  for 
this  you  will  be  paid  extra."  Catd  was  much  taken 
aback  by  the  heterogeneous  tasks  devolving  upon 
her,  and  by  the  manner  of  the  lady,  "who  seemed 
accustomed  to  have  her  dependents  dance  to  her 
wire-pulling  like  so  many  marionettes."  But  she 
promised  herself  and  Madame  de  X  that  she  would 
try  to  do  her  best.  And  this  she  seems  to  have  done 
with  all  her  accustomed  zeal  and  honesty.  There  is 
a  touching  letter  from  her  eldest  pupil  Wera,  dated 
December,  1875,  in  which  the  affectionate  girl 
thanks  her  "dear  Katinka"  for  all  that  the  year  of 
her  stay  with  them  had  meant  to  her  pupils.  "You 
were  to  me  all,  dear  Milinki, — aU,''  she  says;  "and 
I  know  what  I  had  in  you.  You  were  my  governess 
the  best  in  all  the  world,  and  a  friend  none  better 
I  can  find."  The  same  letter  tells  of  a  number  of 
gauvemeurs  and  gouvernantes  that  had  come  and 
[  ISO] 


1 


THE  WANDERER 

gone  in  quick  succession  after  Catd's  departure. 

What  the  trouble  was  in  this  family  is  expressed 
vigorously  in  the  notebook  which  swells  enormously 
in  the  Caucasus.  "I  punished  mischievous  little 
Georgi  to-day  for  continually  disturbing  us  during 
study  hours,  by  putting  him  in  the  hall  outside. 
His  screams  brought  down  upon  me  the  wrath  of 
Madame  de  X,  who  told  me  once  far  all  that  I 
was  never  to  punish  the  children,  that  that  was 
a  right  she  reserved  for  herself  absolutely.  Having 
experience  already  of  what  her  favorite  punish- 
ment is, — a  *mild  persuasion'  made  emphatic  by 
the  promise  of  bonbons  or  a  shower  of  fondly 
reproachful  pet  names, — I  ventured  some  remon- 
strance; but  I  was  silenced  by  a  hostile  look  from 
those  most  fascinating  eyes,  and  by  such  quota- 
tions from  the  lady's  favorite  pedagogists  as : 
*  Never  treat  children  roughly,  but  always  honor  in 
them  the  image  of  God;'  'Gentleness  and  calm 
are  the  prime  virtues  of  the  good  educator; "The 
teacher's  tranquillity  and  love  form  a  rock,  as  it 
were,  against  which  the  impetuosity  of  the  pupil 
is  broken.'"  To  handle  impertinent  and  lazy  boys 
with  the  kid  gloves  of  indulgence  was  decidedly 
against  Catd's  pedagogic  instinct,  but  the  infatu- 
ated theorist  remained  deaf  to  all  arguments. 
[151] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

In  a  few  weeks  inexperienced  Catd  had  learned 
to  understand  that  Alexander''s  obstinacy  was 
nothing  but  firmness  of  character;  that  the  lies  of 
Georgi  only  showed  a  wonderful  imaginativeness, 
and  BasiPs  uproariousness  a  wealth  of  energy; 
Feodor'*s  destructive  spirit,  she  was  told,  clearly 
testified  to  his  thirst  after  knowledge,  and  Wera's 
hysterical  sentimentality  to  her  remarkable  depth 
of  feeling.  "To  punish  these  young  geniuses  for 
faults  which  in  reality  were  uncommon  virtues,  and 
to  oppose  their  wills  needlessly,  would  mean  a  crip- 
pling of  their  originality,  a  throttling  of  their 
youthful  joyousness.  The  whims  and  moods,  there- 
fore, of  the  youngsters  were  carefully  cultivated  so 
as  not  to  interfere  with  the  free  development  of 
their  individuality." 

If  Catd  had  needed  any  punishment  for  her 
unruly  conduct  toward  her  own  governesses  of  the 
past,  she  got  it  here  under  the  yoke  of  relentless 
Madame  de  X's  new-world  views  on  education.  The 
lesson  was  sweetened  somewhat  by  the  strong  psy- 
chological interest  which  the  kaleidoscopic  person- 
ality of  the  "advanced"  pedagogist  seems  to  have 
afforded  to  single-minded  Catd.  Having  lived  among 
the  more  or  less  homogeneous  types  of  ripe  Euro- 
pean civilization,  she  had  never  met  a  person  in 
[  152] 


THE  WANDERER 

whom  so  many  contradictory  natures  existed  side 
by  side  in  seeming  barbaric  isolation.  The  calm 
scholar  and  the  brilliant  society  belle  Catd  could 
harmonize,  but  how  a  woman  could  be  an  over- 
indulgent  mother  and  at  the  same  time  a  cruel 
and  relentless  taskmaster,  went  beyond  her  com- 
prehension. 

In  this  connection  she  wrote  home  after  Christ- 
mas: "Madame  de  X  discontinued  her  studies  in 
order  personally  to  conduct  the  domestic  s3rmphony 
at  this  season  of  parties.  Everybody  is  kept  in  a 
quiver  of  fear  whenever  she  takes  the  reins  of  the 
household  out  of  the  hands  of  her  intimidated  old 
relatives,  for  at  such  times  everything  has  to  go 
tempo  prestissimo^  or  the  whip  will  come  down  hard 
on  the  poor  beasts  of  burden,  her  own  aunt  and 
mother  not  excepted.  Yet  on  Christmas  Eve  this 
slave  driver  suddenly  appeared  as  the  most  adorable 
of  hostesses  and  most  enchanting  of  rulers."  For 
the  benefit  of  her  sisters  at  home  Catd  enumerated 
some  of  the  remarkable  playthings  the  children 
received, — "toy  cows  that  yielded  real  milk;  dolls 
furnished  with  Parisian  stays,  genuine  jewelry, 
lorgnettes, etc.;  a  monthly  magazine  publishing  the 
newest  fashions  in  doll  land;  a  battalion  of  toy 
soldiers  provided  with  detachable  knapsacks,  guns, 
[   153] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

and  horses.  These  luxuries  swelled  the  contents  of 
the  already  over-crowded  shelves  in  the  three  large 
apartments  that  were  reserved  for  the  exclusive  use 
of  the  children,  without  in  the  least  increasing  the 
content  of  their  blase  owners.  If  the  poor  little 
Mutton-Pottses  only  could  have  had  some  share  in 
this  generous  gift-getting !  However,  when  I  think 
of  Jane  and  her  joy  over  the  ball  made  for  her  out 
of  old  kid  gloves,  and  contrast  her  delight  with  the 
matter-of-fact  way  in  which  these  spoiled  young- 
sters received  their  costly  presents,  I  come  to  the 
conclusion  that  too  little  is  better  by  far  than  too 
much." 

The  species  of  the  blase  and  affected  child  was  a 
novelty  to  Catd.  She  studied  this  grotesque  product 
of  wealth  and  folly  with  wonder,  devoting  many 
pages  of  her  notes  to  comments  upon  Wera  the 
sentimental,  and  the  infantile  coxcomb  Georgi.  It 
seems  that  the  twelve-year-old  girl  had  contracted 
a  morbid  fancy  for  the  hero  of  a  French  novel,  a 
young  aristocrat  of  the  time  of  Louis  XVI.  "In 
order  to  get  closer  to  the  object  of  her  dreams," 
the  notes  tell  us,  "she  would  play  the  part  of  a 
rococo  marchioness, — lace  tightly,  powder  her  hair, 
and  adorn  her  exquisitely  sensitive  face  with  beauty 
spots.  When  I  warned  her  that  she  would  surely 
[  154  ] 


THE  WANDERER 

faint  some  day  if  she  did  not  stop  lacing,  she  ex- 
claimed: 'Ah,  but  that  is  just  what  I  long  to  do, 
for  in  my  French  books  the  true  aristocrat  always 
faints.'  Georgi,  the  chubby-faced  eight-year-old, 
also  had  his  tendre  attachement  and  could  act  the 
lovesick  knight  to  the  complete  satisfaction  of  his 
mistress  in  miniature. ...  At  the  children's  soirees, 
which  were  conducted  with  much  solemn  formality, 
playing  with  toys  was  tabooed  as  being  too  child- 
ish. Forfeits,  conversation,  dancing,  and  eating  were 
the  only  fashionable  methods  of  entertainment. 
The  favorite  three  'honor  questions'  for  redeeming 
forfeits  were:  1.  Have  you  smoked  yet?  %  Do  you 
intend  to  get  engaged  soon.?  3. Don't  you  hate  your 
governess?  Approved  topics  of  conversation  were 
furnished  by  the  weather,  the  candy  stores,  the  gov- 
ernesses. Remarks  about  the  weather  were  consid- 
ered most  distingue,  especially  languid  complaints 
about  the  heat.  Perfect  gallantry  was  expected  from 
the  'gentlemen'  on  these  occasions,  and  the  rules 
that  under  all  circumstances  had  to  be  observed 
were, — not  to  crush  the  ladies'  dresses;  not  to  upset 
coffee  cups  or  wine  glasses;  not  to  cry.  To  refrain 
from  the  latter  was  especially  difficult  in  cases 
where  the  knight  was  requested  graciously  to  part 
with  his  pudding  or  bonbons  in  order  to  bestow 
[  155  ] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

them  on  his  hungry  mistress.  Even  Greorgi,  who 
was  a  model  cavalier,  almost  cried  on  one  occasion 
when  his  adored  mistress  Sacha  took  from  his  plate 
a  large  piece  of  delicious  cake.  He  was  fortunately 
able  not  merely  to  control  his  rising  sob,  but,  with 
a  deep  bow  and  a  polite  smile,  to  offer  her  his  ices 
too. 

"All  this  affectation  in  the  nursery  afforded  in- 
finite amusement  and  satisfaction  to  Madame  de  X, 
who  frequently  watched  the  diminutive  gentlemen 
and  ladies  from  behind  a  safe  portiere.  She  of  course 
knew  that  Georgi  was  paying  court  to  Comtesse 
Sacha,  but  what  she  did  not  know  was  that  the 
young  scapegrace  had  inveigled  the  French  govern- 
ess into  relaxing  her  watch  over  him,  so  that  he 
might  enjoy  undisturbed  rendez-vous  with  his  lady 
in  one  of  the  secluded  garden  pavilions. . . .  Sacha, 
who  lived  next  door,  was  bribed  into  this  attach- 
ment for  Georgi  chiefly  by  the  splendid  hussar  uni- 
form that  he  put  on  whenever  they  met,  and  by  the 
sweets  that  the  boy  brought  her  from  the  large  box 
containing  his  mother's  favorite  pedagogic  seda- 
tive. .  .  .  One  day,  as  I  was  reading  in  the  garden, 
during  a  rare  hour  of  leisure,  I  heard  the  prattle  of 
childish  voices  from  the  pavilion  near  me.  'Say,  my 
beloved,'  said  Georgi,  who  was  evidently  smoking 
[156] 


THE  WANDERER 

his  father's  strongest  cigarettes,  *did  you  have  a 
good  time  at  the  entertainment  of  Baroness  Eu- 
genie last  night?'  'A  good  time!'  mocked  Sacha's 
angry  little  voice ; '  it  makes  me  furious  still  to  think 
of  it.'  'Do  you  mean  to  say,'  quickly  interrupted  the 
boy, '  that  one  of  the  gentlemen ' — '  Oh,  no,  dearest,' 
piped  the  girl,  'it  was  not  the  gentlemen  this  time; 
they  behaved  most  correctly.  No,  it  was  Eugenie's 
mother.  You  know  how  retardee  she  is  in  her  views 
about  education.  Well,  she  actually  requested  us  not 
to  dance,  but  to  play  with  our  toys  instead.  You 
can  imagine  what  a  stir  this  extraordinary  proposi- 
tion created.  I  myself  was  on  the  point  of  asking  the 
good  lady  if  she  was  not  aware  that  we  lived  in  the 
nineteenth  century.'  'Absurd,'  exclaimed  Georgi, 
•really  absurd.  Dear  Sacha,  if  you  had  not  told  me 
yourself,  I  could  not  have  believed  that  such  things 
were  possible  in  our  circle.'  'Ah,  but  that  is  not 
all,'  the  girl  continued  with  pathos.  'To  add  to  our 
discomfort,  Eugenie's  gouvernante  omineuse  stood 
guard  over  us  all  the  time  we  were  there,  so  that 
we  could  not  say  one  sensible  word  to  each  other.' 
'These  despicable  governesses!'  Georgi  shouted, 
thumping  the  table;  'I  wonder  of  what  earthly  use 
they  are.  It  seems  to  me  that  they  do  nothing  but 
incommoder  people  in  general,  and  us  in  particular!' 
[157] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

'Yes,'  Sacha  acquiesced  with  a  deep  sigh,  'they 
suppress  all  individual  feeling  in  us,  and  moreover 
are  full  of  the  most  ridiculous  pretensions.  You,  by 
the  way,  mon  ami,  ought  not  to  complain,  for  your 
mother  does  not  tolerate  their  interference.'  'Yes, 
ma  cherie,  you  are  right,'  coughed  out  Georgi  (who 
was  not  nicotine  proof  yet);  'on  some  matters  chere 
maman  really  has  most  advanced  ideas.'  '  Ah,'  cried 
the  little  comtesse  enthusiastically,  'your  mother  is 
a  most  cultured  lady,  and  si  belle,  besides.  By  the 
way,  don't  you  think  that  the  new  Mademoiselle 
est  tresjolief  ^Eh  hien,  passing,'  said  Georgi  lan- 
guidly. 'And  how  do  you  like  that  little  stump  of 
a  German  governess?'  asked  Sacha.  'She  isn't  bad,' 
Georgi  answered;  'in  fact,  I  heard  maman  say  that 
she  had  some  rather  commendable  traits, — but  ex- 
cuse me,  dearest,  I  suddenly  feel  so  dizzy ...  it 's 
the  heat,  I  suppose.'  'Why,  yes,  mon  pauvre  petit 
gar^on,  you  look  very  pale . . .  here,  try  my  salts.' 

"But  the  salts  could  not  prevent  the  sudden 
catastrophe  that  was  to  prove  fatal  to  the  contin- 
uation of  romantic  love-making." 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  substance  of 

this  conversation  was  based  on  facts,  for  Cato  shows 

a  curious  inability  to  deviate  from  the  historical 

truth  of  personal  experience  for  the  sake  of  fiction. 

[158] 


THE  WANDERER 

Her  notes  and  numbers  of  her  letters  generally 
agree  down  to  the  smallest  details  in  their  descrip- 
tions of  actual  events  and  impressions.  Even  in 
her  novels  (unpublished),  the  purely  fantastic  and 
the  empirical  refuse  to  blend  harmoniously,  and  in 
point  of  subject  as  well  as  style  one  can  readily 
separate  the  unmistakable  elements  of  experienced 
and  fancied  matter.  In  view  of  this  it  may  be 
doubly  interesting  to  take  cognizance  of  some  of 
Catd's  Caucasian  impressions  as  she  herself  has  put 
them  down. 


[  159] 


XXI 

"  rr^HE  city  of  Tiflis  stretches  along  a  broad  val- 
A  ley  crossed  by  the  zigzag  course  of  the  roar- 
ing waters  of  the  Kura  (the  famous  Kyros  of  old) 
and  hemmed  in  on  either  side  by  barren  limestone 
mountains.  Its  half- Asiatic,  half-European  charac- 
ter is  at  once  apparent  in  the  party-colored  mosaic 
of  Oriental  and  Occidental  contours  of  life, — un- 
paved  roads  winding  between  the  cube-shaped 
sacMis  (earth  or  stone  huts  of  the  natives);  fash- 
ionable boulevards  lined  by  the  luxurious  villas  of 
the  wealthy  Russians;  venerable  old  castle  ruins 
on  the  mountain  slopes  looking  down  on  the  con- 
ventional abodes  of  the  European  middle  class; 
splendid  French  stores  and  dingy  Caucasian  booths; 
Russian  nurses  in  richly  embroidered  red  or  blue 
gowns  with  the  elaborately  dressed  children  of  the 
rich,  and  the  Caucasian  mother  astride  a  lanky  pony 
with  her  infant  strapped  to  her  back;  Cossacks, 
Greeks,  Armenians,  Tartars;  grimy  Jewish  peddlers; 
beggars  in  gaudy  tatters;  packs  of  hungry  dogs; 
and  the  *four  hundred,'  in  elegant  coaches,  driving 
at  lightning  speed  through  the  motley  throng. . . . 
"Witnessing  the  inroads  that  the  conventionaliz- 
ing European  influence  is  making  on  the  distinctly 
[160] 


\ 


THE  WANDERER 

Asiatic  character  of  this  city,  one  feels  like  stretch- 
ing one's  hands  protectingly  over  this  fantastic  bit 
from  the  land  of  the  Arabian  Nights. 

"To  the  European  visitor  the  native  Georgian 
element  is  of  course  of  first  interest.  The  Gi-usinian, 
Gurian,  Mingrelian,  or  whatever  the  native  may 
call  himself  according  to  his  special  tribe,  lives  in 
a  house  without  door  or  window;  he  exists  practi- 
cally on  com  bread,  fruit,  and  grass;  he  drinks  his 
fiery  Caucasian  wine,  but  hardly  ever  eats  meat. 
Even  the  wealthier  Georgians  often  live  in  this 
way.  Their  women  wear  long  white  linen  mantles 
(tschadras)  that  half  conceal  the  face.  These  dark- 
eyed  creatures  of  classic  form  look  exceedingly 
attractive  on  the  outside,  but 

'Let  no  man  ever  long  to  know 
What  fearsome  chaos  reigns  below.* 

In  other  words,  what  the  dainty  white  rags  dis- 
creetly cover  is  something  frightful,  and  could  be 
analyzed  only  with  the  help  of  insect  powder  and 
fire -tongs.  The  men,  each  with  his  bourJca  (a  fur 
cape)  and  high  fur  cap,  and  with  a  glittering 
dagger  stuck  in  his  belt,  present  the  handsomest 
gentis  homo  I  have  ever  seen,  especially  during  the 
warm  season  when  they  exhibit  only  their  fine 
brown  birthday  clothes.  .  .  . 
[161] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

"It  often  happens  that  a  porter  is  a  native  prince, 
and  that  a  washerwoman,  who  is  drunk  every  even- 
ing, was  bom  a  royal  princess.  Many  of  these  fallen 
royalties  have  become  robbers,  and  commit  crimes 
that  recall  the  darkest  middle  ages.  We  therefore 
have  two  special  watchmen  in  our  house  and  at 
night  four  more  outside.  When  we  go  to  the  opera 
we  always  have  to  engage  a  Cossack  to  watch  over 
our  coats  and  hats,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  there 
is  a  goodly  number  of  mounted  police  before  the 
theater  and  a  guard  of  twenty  soldiers  inside.  This 
is  all  a  consequence  of  the  new  liberties  that  Alex- 
ander II  has  granted  to  these  half  barbarians  here; 
for  a  few  years  ago  one  could  walk  about  late  at 
night  with  perfect  safety.  .  .  . 

"To  educate  future  generations  of  its  Caucasian 
subjects  to  a  higher  standard  of  ethics  the  Rus- 
sian government  has  established  first-class  high 
schools  for  boys  and  girls.  With  what  success  may 
be  seen  from  a  recent  occurrence.  A  sixteen-year- 
old  girl,  belonging  to  one  of  the  best  families  of 
Tiflis,  revenged  herself  on  her  teachers  by  setting 
fire  to  the  school  at  midnight.  The  deed  done,  she 
escaped  out  of  the  window  into  the  arms  of  her 
swain,  with  whom  she  fled  into  the  mountains,  the 
favorite  refuge  of  outlaws  and  fugitives  since  time 
[162] 


THE  WANDERER 

immemorial.  These  people  may  be  made  to  put  on 
a  coating  of  Western  civilization,  but  inside  they 
will  always  remain  Caucasian  savages:  ^Grattez  le 
vemisy — voild  le  Scythe!^ 

"The  morals  of  many  Europeans  here,  the  army 
of  governesses  not  excepted,  are  in  a  sad  plight, 
too.  France  and  Switzerland  evidently  suffer  from 
an  over-supply  oijemmes  de  chamhre,  who,  when 
they  find  it  expedient  to  disappear  for  some  time, 
buy  a  ticket  to  the  Caucasus.  On  the  way  they 
swallow  ten  cents'  worth  of  savoir  faire;  their 
courage  and  their  impudence  rise  together,  and  at 
Tiflis  they  make  their  exit  from  a  first-class  rail- 
way carriage,  labeled  'Authorized  Governess.'  Poor 
children — poor  boys  especially — who  fall  a  prey 
to  such  experienced  frauds!  The  other  day  our 
French  governess  had  to  be  dismissed  because  she 
was  discovered  entertaining  six  army  officers  after 
midnight  in  her  innermost  chamber.  Have  such 
creatures,  who  dare  to  call  themselves  teachers  of 
the  young,  no  trace  of  conscience  left?  Fortunately 
the  children  have  other  opportunities  for  culture 
than  that  offered  by  these  rotten  French  oranges 
which  are  only  preserved  externally  by  a  thick  coat- 
ing of  rouge.*  .  .  . 

*  This  is  a  prized  instance  of  one  class  of  Catd's  metaphors. 
[163] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

"Intellectual  life  is  of  course  chiefly  fostered  by 
the  German  colonists,  who  count  among  their  num- 
bers noted  scientists  and  musicians.  But  there  is  an 
Italian  opera  company  here  that,  in  spite  of  diffi- 
culties, gives  far  better  performances  than  I  saw  in 
the  Grand  Opera  House  in  Edinburgh. 

"All  the  people  about  me  are  members  of  the 
Greek  Church.  This,  with  the  educated  Russian, 
means  only  a  perfunctory  observance  of  external 
ceremonial.  To  be  sure,  anybody  who  lays  himself 
open  to  the  charge  of  heresy  is  considered  a  sus- 
picious character  by  the  police,  but  so  long  as  a 
Russian  subject  observes  the  main  feasts  and  cere- 
monies of  the  national  church,  he  is  counted  ortho- 
dox. How  little  spiritual  and  moral  significance 
the  Church  has  for  the  average  Russian  may  be 
seen  from  the  humiliating  social  position  which  the 
parish  priests  occupy,  and  from  the  fact  that  such 
a  priest  himself  never  lays  any  claim  to  spiritual 
influence  with  his  parish.  He  is  a  sadly  ignorant 
individual,  and  generally  has  no  idea  of  larger 
intellectual  and  spiritual  issues.  The  old  Russian 
proverb,  'The  hair  is  long,  but  the  mind  is  short,' 
is  more  applicable  to  the  long-haired  priest  than 
to  the  women  for  whom  it  was  originally  meant. 
To  cover  up  these  defects  the  Russian  Church  has 
[  164] 


THE  WANDERER 

taken  care  to  give  much  importance  to  the  spectac- 
ular element,  which  strongly  appeals  to  the  Slav. 
The  great  Chui-ch  festivals,  Epiphany  and  Easter 
in  pai-ticular,  are  operas  with  incense,  as  it  were, 
accompanied  by  showers  of  kisses." 

In  April,  as  Catd's  home  letters  report,  the 
whole  family,  including  grandmother,  parents, 
aunts,  nine  childi*en,  dogs,  domestics,  and  moun- 
tains of  luggage  (over-freight  on  toys  and  clothes 
alone  was  one  thousand  rubles),  set  forth  from 
Tiflis  by  rail  to  take  up  their  spring  quarters  in 
Zarskoye  Zelo,  near  St.  Petersburg.  "Three  quar- 
ters of  an  hour  spent  in  bekissing  and  becrossing 
ourselves,  and  away  we  went  in  our  nomad's  wagon 
over  the  marvelously  beautiful  mountains.  Unfor- 
tunately our  view  was  often  cut  off  by  babies' 
clothes  that  were  hung  up  by  the  windows  to  dry 
— certainly  a  reminder  that  the  unlovely  prose  of 
life  always  intrudes  itself  when  it  is  least  wanted. 
At  Poti  we  spent  the  night  on  a  little  tug  that  was 
to  carry  us  to  the  'Cesarewna,'  the  largest  Black 
Sea  steamer,  next  morning.  When  we  set  out,  the 
sea,  which,  by  the  way,  has  extremely  weak  nerves 
at  Poti,  was  tossing  about  madly,  while  the  rain 
fell  in  torrents.  The  consequence  was  that  our  tug 
and  the  big  ship  made  each  other  the  deepest  court 
[165] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

bows  and  declined  to  do  business.  Both  captains, 
scolding  from  the  decks,  absolutely  refused  to 
sacrifice  a  boat  for  the  dangerous  transfer  of  the 
passengers.  Finally  some  one  suggested  the  crazy 
idea  of  laying  a  gang  plank  from  deck  to  deck. 
This  the  wind  again  and  again  hurled  down  into 
the  water.  At  last  the  devil's  bridge  lay  still  for  a 
moment,  and  Madame  de  X,  some  of  her  children, 
and  I  tore  across.  We  hardly  were  safe  on  the  other 
side  when  we  heard  a  cry  and  a  crash.  The  plank 
had  again  been  flung  into  the  water,  and  the 
gentleman  who  carried  our  youngest  boy  barely 
escaped  going  with  it.  The  passengers  now  angrily 
refused  to  cross,  and  so  one  of  the  captains  at  last 
launched  a  boat,  which  carried  its  load  of  fainting 
and  seasick  people  safely  to  the  big  ship." 


[  166 


XXII 

"  T  F  I  were  novel-mad,  like  so  many  women  of 
X  our  time,"  Catd  wrote  to  Fraulein  Friederici, 
her  old  friend  in  Hannover,  "I  should  not  lack 
a  romantic  background  and  enough  wildly  fantastic 
situations  to  supply  a  perpetual  Miihlbach*  with 
dime-novel  nonsense.  But  the  earth  is  already  so 
well  saturated  with  watery  gush  like  that,  that  I 
should  not  want  to  add  my  drop  to  it." 

Apparently,  however,  the  temptation  offered  by 
copious  notes  and  vivid  remembrances  was  too 
strong  to  be  resisted.  I  have  in  my  possession  a 
manuscript  novel  written  in  one  paragraph  and 
spreading  over  no  less  than  two  thousand  octavo 
pages  closely  covered  with  Catd's  characteristically 
neat  and  energetic  handwriting.  Catd  did  not  begin 
seriously  to  work  on  this  romance  of  colossal  dimen- 
sions until  some  twelve  months  after  she  had  left 
Tiflis.  But  she  collected  most  of  her  material  for 
it  while  staying  in  Russia,  and  her  experiences  in 
the  Orient  stimulated  the  conception. 

This  novel  is  truly  a  fearful  and  wonderful 
production,  intensely  interesting  from  a  psycholog- 
ical and  biographical  point  of  view,  but  quite  an 

*  MuhWach,  millstream, — a  play  on  the  name  of  the  novelist. 

[167] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

impossible  creation  if  the  first  test  of  art — that  of 
unity  and  moderation — be  applied  to  it.  It  con- 
tains plots  sufficient  to  feed  a  hundred  ordinary 
romancers,  and  a  wealth  of  dramatic  situation  such 
as  a  Fenimore  Cooper  or  a  Conan  Doyle  would  be 
proud  to  invent.  It  is  not  all  chaos,  though.  Two 
distinct  worlds  are  discernible,  the  one  of  fancy,  the 
other  of  fact.  The  latter  concerns  itself  with  the  life 
of  a  German  governess  named  Carla.  The  other 
presents  the  character  and  adventures  of  a  Cauca- 
sian robber  chief  called  Gorokki;  the  connecting 
link  between  the  two  being  the  romantic  love  that 
a  Russian  count,  enemy  of  Gorokki,  bears  to 
Carla's  fair  German  friend,  who  is  a  governess  too, 
but  one  of  noble  descent.  Around  these  chief  actors 
in  the  dramatic  epic  of  passionate  love  and  friend- 
ship, of  fanatic  patriotism,  of  hatred  and  intrigue, 
are  grouped  a  vast  number  of  characters,  some  of 
which  are  taken  from  real  life,  while  others  have 
been  spontaneously  generated  out  of  a  startlingly 
adventurous  fancy.  The  reader  is  made  to  move  in 
the  company  of  English  and  Russian  nobles;  to 
associate  with  the  nihilists  and  members  of  the 
"Third  Section;"  with  the  German  middle  class 
and  the  Caucasian  rabble;  with  Armenians,  Turks, 
Georgians;  with  Jews  and  Gentiles,  Mahometans 
[168] 


THE  WANDERER 

and  Parsees,  And  the  backgi-ound  on  which  these 
kaleidoscopic  shapes  move,  shifts  from  Germany  to 
the  British  Isles,  from  France  to  St.  Petersburg, 
and  from  there  to  Tiflis  and  the  Caucasian  high- 
lands. 

To  orient  oneself  in  this  bewildering  maze  of 
characters  and  events,  of  lyric  descriptions,  di*a- 
matic  dialogues,  learned  discussions,  is  no  small 
task,  and  fairly  impossible  on  a  first  reading.  A 
second  perusal,  however,  unfailingly  reveals  the 
romancer's  remarkable  force  of  characterization  as 
well  as  the  exuberance  of  her  imagination,  and 
makes  one  regretful  for  the  lack  of  instinct  for 
artistic  composition  that  prevented  the  cosmic 
shaping  of  this  rich  chaos. 

Ethically,  the  novel  is  interesting  on  account 
of  the  mellow  tolerance  that  is  shown  in  the 
author's  dealing  with  her  characters.  The  most 
interesting  character  ethically  and  aesthetically  is 
the  Lesghian  Gorokki.  He  is  the  Uehermensch  in 
the  pseudo-Nietzsche  apprehension  of  the  term :  a 
colossal,  if  crude,  composite  of  Faust,  Mephisto,  and 
Satan.  To  the  biographer  he  is  especially  interest- 
ing as  embodying  and  anticipating  Catd's  later  en- 
thusiastic predilection  for  Jakob  Boehme's  mystic 
conception  of  the  oneness  of  Liehegeist  (love,  rea- 
[169] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

son)  and  Grimmgeist  (wrath,  passion),  and  of  the 
importance  of  Grimmgeist  as  the  individualizing 
root  of  all  things. 

Aside  from  the  figure  of  Gorokki,  the  most  vivid 
feature  in  the  book  is  the  picturesque  historical 
background.  With  much  imaginative  force,  and, 
so  far  as  I  can  ascertain,  surprising  accuracy  in 
regard  to  accessories,  the  author  depicts  one  of 
the  last  insuri'ections  of  the  "free  mountaineers" 
against  the  supremacy  of  Russia.  Gorokki's  almost 
inaccessible  retreat  in  the  heart  of  the  snow-capped 
masses  of  fissured  rock  reminds  one  of  Gunib,  the 
scene  of  the  famous  Schamyl's  capture  by  the  Rus- 
sians in  1859.  The  descriptions  of  costumes,  man- 
ners, and  scenery  are  evidently  the  result  of  minute 
observations  and  careful  reading.  Her  warriors  wear 
the  national  bourJca  and  high  fur  cap,  they  are 
armed  with  daggers  and  kiiishals ;hut  one  is  no  more 
allowed  to  forget  the  living  man  under  his  strange 
outfit,  than  his  fleet  horse  under  its  Oriental  trap- 
pings. Although  chiefly  concerned  with  the  Les- 
ghian''s  life  of  a  warrior, — with  his  wild-cat  climb- 
ings,  his  fanatic  onrushes,  his  cruelty  and  bestial 
drinking  bouts, — the  writer  gives  also  a  glimpse  of 
his  domestic  existence.  One  sees  him  in  the  treeless 

[170] 


THE  WANDERER 

Daghestan  aouls^*  one  meets  him  in  his  arba^\  or 
finds  him  on  "the  roads  that  are  no  roads,"  guid- 
ing his  frightened  horses  past  caravans  of  their 
stately  and  grotesque  brother  camels.  Countless 
little  touches  are  skillfully  worked  in  to  enliven 
these  pictures  of  strange  and  fascinating  Oriental 
life. 

I  should  like  to  quote  at  length  from  this  part 
of  the  novel,  but  when  rendered  into  English  Catd''s 
romantic  style  is  even  worse  than  her  ordinary 
prose.  Not  only  is  it  highly  metaphorical,  but 
it  also  contains  a  superabundance  of  clever  word 
combinations  that  defy  translation.  Her  propensity 
for  puns  is,  moreover,  allowed  fullest  play,  and  also 
her  Jean  Paulean  predilection  for  weighing  down 
a  noun  with  a  heavy  chain  of  attributive  phrases. 
These  defects  mar  most  of  her  literary  expression. 
In  later  years  they  were  the  chief  cause  of  her 
abandoning  her  literary  ambition.  If  she  could  have 
talked  her  books,  she  might  have  created  some- 
thing lasting  even  in  the  line  of  pure  literature. 
Treating  her  defects  of  style  with  patience,  I  must 
confess  that  I  felt  more  human  sympathy  and  in- 
terest for  the  Caucasian  after  the  reading  of  Catd's 

*  Gray  villages  consisting  of  terraces  of  cube-shaped  houses  built  of 

rock. 

t  A  creaky  all-wood  carriage  drawn  by  buffaloes. 

[171] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

youthful  and  crude  representation  of  him  than  I 
could  muster  after  working  through  some  "author- 
ities" on  the  subject;  and  this  in  spite  of  the  fact 
that  Catd's  own  sympathies  in  this  case  were  not 
on  the  side  of  the  vanquished,  but  with  the  victo- 
rious Russians. 


[172] 


XXIII 

/i  LTHOUGH  Catd  left  Russia  when  she  had 
jlV  been  there  scarcely  a  year,  it  was  not  because 
she  disliked  the  country  and  its  inhabitants.  The 
breadth  and  tolerance  that  in  her  eyes  seemed  to 
distinguish  the  Slav  above  all  other  races  struck 
a  sympathetic  chord  in  her.  The  Russian's  inborn 
sense  of  the  brotherhood  of  all  men,  and  his  capacity 
for  overlooking  practical  issues  in  the  pursuit  of  an 
idea,  made  strong  appeal  to  her.  "It  is  good  living 
among  the  Slavs,  with  their  sovereign  contempt  for 
money,"  she  used  to  say,  "provided  you  are  not  a 
governess.  ...  A  governess  has  as  hard  a  time  here 
as  anywhere  else,  for  the  Russians,  in  their  eager- 
ness to  follow  the  rules  of  French  etiquette,  outdo 
their  French  models,  and  carry  the  system  of  chap- 
eronage,  especially,  to  senseless  extremes.  They 
demand  that  their  governesses  stand  guard  over 
the  children  continuously,  not  only  during  the  six 
school  hours,  but  at  all  times.  So  these  X  angels, 
boys  and  girls  alike,  are  never  allowed  to  be  alone, 
not  even  in  the  house  or  in  the  garden.  I  am  teacher, 
mademoiselle  la  sentinelle,  and,  when  the  cherries 
begin  to  ripen,  I  shall  probably  be  scarecrow,  too. 
I  can  understand  how  one  should  want  to  establish 
[173] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

an  eternal  watch  over  royal  princesses  whose  fragile 
reputations  generally  need  to  be  carefully  preserved 
by  etiquette,  but  I  fail  to  see  why  one  should  sacri- 
fice one'^s  shoe  soles  and  all  the  free  time  one  might 
have  to  simple  children  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
When  Madame  de  X  asked  me  who  took  care  of 
the  German  children  outside  of  school  hours,  I  told 
her  that  der  liehe  Gott  did  that,  and  that  in  Russia 
the  Virgin  Mary  might  properly  be  intrusted  with 
the  charge.  Since  I  am  not  supposed  to  read  or 
write  or  study  when  at  my  sentinel  post,  I  have 
begun  to  patern*  again  from  sheer  despair.  .  .  . 
My  prime  object  in  life  is  still  to  educate,  but 
the  vocation  of  governess  has  nothing  in  common 
with  that  of  the  educator.  What  a  shame  it  is,  for 
instance,  that  nothing  can  be  done  to  help  Wera, 
this  loving  and  gifted  but  morbidly  self-conscious 
young  creature,  to  find  her  way  back  into  childlike 
simplicity  and  happy  unconcern!  But  her  mother 
stands  between  her  and  all  well-meant  outside  influ- 
ences, and  so  deprives  the  governesses  of  the  most 
beautiful,  if  most  difficult,  task  that  their  vocation 
yields.  To  be  sure,  it  is  the  mother's  supreme  right 
to  guide  the  education  of  her  children.  But  why  do 
not  mothers,  if  they  need  a  governess  to  help  them 

*  Cf  .  page  88. 

[174] 


THE  WANDERER 

in  this  all-important  task,  come  to  some  previous 
understanding  with  the  latter  about  methods  to  be 
used  and  pedagogic  principles  to  be  followed?  Why 
do  they  insist  on  treating  us  as  tools  that  may  be 
pushed  aside  at  any  moment?  In  my  extensive  cor- 
respondence with  mothers  I  have  found  that  the  gist 
of  their  letters  was  invariably  the  following: 

"Dear  Fraulein  [oh,  how  I  hate  this  'Fraulein'!]: 
I  want  to  engage  a  governess  for  my  daughters.  I 
hope  you  are  able  to  undertake  French,  German, 
music,  and  drawing.  Please  include  your  photo- 
graph and  testimonials  in  answering.  Salary  60-80£. 
Yours  truly,  N.  N. 

"If  the  ladies  had  wanted  to  bargain  for  so 
many  bales  of  cotton,  they  could  hardly  have  been 
briefer.  .  .  .  No,  I  am  tired  and  sick  of  this  state 
of  things  and  refuse  to  be  a  governess  any  longer. 
I  should  vastly  prefer  to  stand  at  the  street  corners 
offering  tallow  candles  for  sale.  In  that  trade  I 
should  enlighten  the  world  much  more  effectually 
than  by  my  Sisyphus-like  activity  under  a  taskmas- 
ter who,  like  Madame  de  X,  constructs  *  infallible' 
schemes  of  education  from  books,  but  who  has  no 
idea  what  the  real  needs  of  her  children  are.  ...  I 
have  saved  two  hundred  and  fifty  rubles.  With  the 
help  of  these  I  shall  try  to  get  what  I  so  much  long 
[175] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

to  have, — a  thorough  musical  education."  "Please 
help  me,"  she  wi-ites  to  her  faithful  teacher  friend 
at  Hannover,  "to  find  some  private  school  in  France 
where  I  can  give  a  few  German  lessons  in  exchange 
for  good  instruction  in  music  and  Parisian  French. 
Equipped  with  more  music  and  French  I  shall  be 
able  to  secure  a  hundred-pound  position  in  Eng- 
land, and  so,  maybe,  save  enough  money  by  and 
by  to  study  music  at  the  Leipzig  Conservatory." 

Catd,  it  will  be  observed,  never  asked  her  father 
for  money.  However  different  from  the  average 
German  girl  she  may  have  been,  she  yet  fully 
represented  the  "type"  in  her  reluctance  to  claim 
anything  but  the  merest  pittance  for  her  own 
education  while  there  were  sons  to  be  provided  for. 
Although  she  knew  that  there  was  a  large  income, 
she  was  also  aware  that  with  the  ever  increasing 
family  of  children  (there  were  seven  girls  and  two 
boys  now)  expenses  had  grown  heavier,  and  that 
already  the  reserve  funds  had  been  sacrificed  for 
the  idol  in  so  many  German  families, — the  eldest 
son.  While  Catd  labored  honestly  to  save  a  few  hun- 
dred dollars  for  a  dignified  purpose,  her  brother 
Claus  was  spending  thousands  in  the  pursuit  of 
fast  and  fastidious  living  which  he  hoped  would 
bring  him  the  longed-for  social  recognition  among 
[176] 


THE  WANDERER 

the  aristocratic  set  at  the  universities.  At  eighteen 
Catd  had  made  herself  independent,  and  never 
claimed  another  cent  from  her  parents;  but  her 
brother  at  thirty  was  still  unable  to  provide  for 
himself,  though  he  had  used  up  all  the  money  that 
might  have  been  available  for  the  education  of  his 
sisters.  Conditions  like  these  the  German  girl,  with 
her  carefully  nursed  ideal  of  self-eifacement,  not 
only  accepts  cheerfully,  but  fosters  with  all  her 
"weak  strength,"  and  Catd  was  no  exception  to 
this  iTile.  There  is  never  a  word  of  dissatisfaction 
to  her  parents  or  of  reproach  to  her  brother  in  any 
of  her  letters,  and  when,  in  1883,  the  capable  but 
vain,  selfish  man  at  last  passed  his  final  state  ex- 
aminations no  feeling  was  expressed  but  pure  joy 
over  his  success.  Meanwhile  Catd  plodded  along 
bravely  in  the  hope  that  better  times  might  be  in 
store  for  her. 

Asked  why  she  would  not  consider  accepting  a 
position  in  a  German  family  or  a  girls'  school  she 
writes:  "Of  course  I  should  enjoy  more  social 
respect  if  I  worked  in  a  German  family,  and  I 
should  not  run  against  a  thorny  hedge  of  educa- 
tional nonsense,  either.  I  should  also  be  treated 
cordially  as  a  member  of  the  family;  but  that  is 
the  very  privilege  I  dread,  because  it  would  involve 
[177] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

my  being  expected,  from  mere  motives  of  friend- 
ship, to  help  the  busy  Hausfrau  sew,  dust,  cook, 
and  what  not. ...  If  I  were  bom  a  martyr  and 
had  been  brought  up  on  the  whey  of  resignation 
I  might  enjoy  being  a  fifth  wheel  on  the  teaching 
staff  of  a  German  high  school  for  girls,  and  I 
might  learn  to  live  on  a  woman's  salary  of  two 
hundred  and  twenty-five  dollars  per  year.  As  it 
is,  I  not  only  resent  the  favoritism  shown  to  men 
in  the  unequal  distribution  of  educational  advan- 
tages, of  teaching  opportunities,  and  of  salary, 
but  I  am  also  keenly  sensible  of  the  fact  that, 
beside  an  overwhelming  majority  of  better  edu- 
cated, better  paid,  more  highly  respected  men  of 
naturally  aggressive  inclinations,  a  woman  teacher 
could  not  exercise  either  a  very  deep  or  a  very  wide 
educational  influence.  And  /  could  do  this  least 
of  all  because  I  am  not  cut  out  after  the  pattern 
of  EdU  Weiblichkeit  such  as  the  Fatherland  is 
alone  willing  to  recognize  and  honor.  .  .  .  The 
times  will  change,  of  course,  and  bitter  necessity 
will  compel  the  German  women  themselves  to  shat- 
ter such  a  juggernaut  of  an  ideal;  but  that  state 
of  things  is  a  long  way  off." 

To  a  musical  friend  who  wanted  to  be  a  profes- 
sional musician,  but  who  met  with  hot  opposition 
[178] 


THE  WANDERER 

from  her  family,  Catd  wrote  at  this  time:  "I  am 
extremely  sorry  that  the  prejudices  of  your  family 
will  make  it  impossible  for  you  either  to  teach  music 
or  to  play  in  public.  For  what  is  the  use  of  all  study 
if  it  has  to  be  carried  on  merely  for  the  sake  of 
one's  own  development?  I  am  afraid  that  neither  of 
us  quite  fits  in  with  our  century,  or,  living  as  we  do 
in  our  time,  that  we  ought  to  have  been  born  men 
instead  of  women.  Ours  is  an  unfortunate  era  of 
transition,  and  the  deficient  half  culture  that  women 
are  granted  now  is  worse,  perhaps,  than  total  lack 
of  education.  For  it  makes  us  but  conscious  of  our 
own  'whited'  ignorance  and  kindles  in  us  a  rest- 
less desire  to  become  man's  intellectual  equal,  to 
be  able,  like  him,  to  hammer  out  our  own  fortunes, 
and  by  our  own  exertions  to  earn  a  life  that  will 
satisfy  both  mind  and  heart.  If  we  lived  but 
two  centuries  later,  you  would  be  allowed  to  be 
a  performing  artist  and  would  still  be  considered  a 
lady,  and  I  myself  might — now  don't  smile! — but 
I  just  might  perhaps  be  a  regularly  appointed  pro- 
fessor at  some  great  and  glorious  university. . . .  For 
the  present  I  have  given  up  all  larger  educational 
ambition  as  futile.  In  looking  into  my  future  now 
I  behold  myself  wedded  to  my  beloved  Beethoven, 
gloating  over  a  rich  trousseau  of  music  and  shel- 
[  179  ] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

tered  under  the  wing  of  a  mother-in-law  in  the 
shape  of  a  Bechstein  Fliigel  [grand  piano].  In  such 
suiTOundings  all  the  jarring  notes  of  my  life  as  a 
governess  will  quickly  resolve  themselves  into  beau- 
tiful harmonies;  in  other  words,  the  time  will  come 
when  I  shall  feel  grateful  even  to  X  and  Mutton- 
Potts  for  my  harvest  of  rich  experiences." 


[  180] 


XXIV 

THE  time  for  a  spiritual  harvest  like  that 
indicated  in  the  last  chapter  was  to  come 
soon, — in  a  manner  entirely  unforeseen  by  Catd 
herself,  but  more  or  less  vaguely  anticipated  by 
her  friends.  The  latter  had  been  well  aware  that 
while  in  Russia  Catd  had  given  in  more  than  ever 
to  her  mania  for  burning  the  candle  at  both  ends. 
Not  at  liberty  to  work  for  herself  during  the  day- 
time, she  had  devoted  half  the  night  to  collecting 
and  sifting  material  for  future  literary  pui*poses, 
to  learning  Russian  (which  kind  old  "Babushka" 
taught  her),  or  to  studying  the  theory  of  music.  In 
her  eagerness  to  carry  out  her  plan  in  regard  to 
music  and  French  she  had  taken  no  vacation,  but 
after  leaving  St.  Petersburg  had  immediately  rushed 
into  her  new  duties  at  a  fashionable  boarding 
school  in  Brussels.  Taking  all  the  French  and  mu- 
sical instruction  she  could  get,  and  giving  four 
German  lessons  a  day  herself  in  return,  she  soon 
managed  to  use  up  the  last  remnant  of  strength 
she  had  brought  from  Russia.  In  December  she 
contracted  a  severe  form  of  nervous  disease  accom- 
panied by  brain  fever.  When  she  woke  from  her 
delirium  she  found  herself  in  the  hospital  of  a 
[181   ] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

Roman  Catholic  convent,  surrounded  by  sisters  of 
charity.  Their  tenderness  and  unselfish  devotion 
must  have  been  very  marked,  for  they  made  such 
a  deep  impression  on  the  patient  that  ever  after- 
wards she  reverently  acknowledged  that  the  Catholic 
sisters  of  charity  were  the  true  angels  of  the  Lord. 
While  in  the  clutches  of  the  delirium  she  had 
some  wonderful  dreams,  one  of  which  she  penciled 
down  immediately  after  she  regained  consciousness. 
I  give  it  here  because  it  reveals  in  a  measure  her 
deep-lying  imaginative  nature,  which  her  restless 
activity  and  ever  productive  mood,  as  well  as  her 
natural  shyness,  generally  kept  veiled  from  the  view 
of  all  but  the  very  few  whom  she  admitted  into 
the  sanctuary  of  her  inner  life.  She  tells  how,  in 
her  dream,  she  found  herself  on  the  Nile,  perse- 
cuted by  huge  crocodiles;  how  she  fled  before  them 
into  the  desert  of  Sahara,  where  black  demons 
tormented  her,  and  how  in  the  climax  of  agonies 
she  suddenly  heard  a  voice  which  she  recognized  as 
that  of  a  cousin,  a  pupil  of  Liszt's.  "She  called  out 
to  me  that  she  heard  music,  and  asked  me  to  come 
with  her.  We  walked  hand  in  hand  until  we  entered 
a  hall  flooded  with  radiant  light,  where  we  beheld 
huge  organ  pipes  sparkling  with  diamonds.  Angels 
hovered  about  them,  touching  the  keys  with  the 
[  182] 


THE  WANDERER 

tips  of  their  variegated  wings,  and  the  sounds  of 
the  music  foi-thwith  changed  into  rosebuds  which 
we  collected  into  our  laps.  All  the  angels  had  a 
beaming  sun  in  their  hearts,  and  from  the  center 
of  the  vast  space  there  shone  out  a  light  so  radiant 
that  I  could  not  bear  to  look  at  it.  'You  are  in 
heaven,'  I  heard  a  voice  say,  'and  over  yonder  you 
behold  the  dear  God,  and  the  roses  that  blos- 
som at  his  feet  are  the  works  of  men.  Every  man 
has  his  roses  in  heaven;  when  they  begin  to  bud 
he  comes  and  nurses  them  himself;  if,  however,  he 
commits  a  great  sin  on  earth,  they  wither  away.' 
Then  I  looked  closely  at  the  precious  plants,  and  I 
saw  blood  flowing  from  some  of  them;  they  changed 
their  color  and  died.  But  from  the  radiance  tears 
fell  on  the  dead  leaves  and  dropped  deep,  deep 
down  into  the  heart  of  the  roses  (which  suddenly 
seemed  to  be  damned  souls),  where  they  quenched 
the  consuming  fire  and  grew  and  grew,  until  they 
had  changed  all  about  them  into  their  own  sub- 
stance. The  eternal  light  di-awing  these  souls  on- 
ward made  wings  grow  on  them,  so  that  they 
could  fly  upward  and  take  their  places  among  the 
blessed.  Trembling  with  awe  and  bliss  I  whispered, 
'Have  I  any  flowers  in  heaven?'  And  a  voice  said, 
'They  are  in  your  lap;  take  them  down  to  earth 
[  183  ] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

with  you  and  see  that  they  blossom  there.'  .  .  . 
After  this,"  the  incorrigible  realist  adds,  "I  never 
dreamt  of  heaven  and  its  angels  any  more.  Owing, 
probably,  to  my  long  fasting,  I  had  hallucinations, 
instead,  of  a  prolonged  and  enthusiastic  feasting 
on  large  quantities  of  roast  goose,  liver  sausage, 
and  salt  pickle." 

Barely  recovered,  she  insisted  on  taking  up  her 
full  work  again  and  on  playing  at  a  concert  given 
by  the  school  of  music.  The  consequence  was  that 
she  had  a  relapse,  and  that  one  of  her  sisters  had 
to  fetch  her  home.  She  must  have  presented  a 
ghastly  appearance,  for  Eberhard,  the  baby  boy, 
and  Mariechen,  the  nine-year-old,  broke  out  into 
sobs  of  fright  on  seeing  her. 

The  result  of  her  sickness  and  of  the  softening 
influences  of  a  long  convalescence  was  that  she  de- 
termined to  do  what  she  had  expected  least  of  all 
of  herself, — to  stay  in  Upgant  for  the  next  few 
years  and  devote  herself  to  the  education  of  her 
ill-taught  sisters. 

During  the  long  hours  of  leisure  that  her  life, 
lived  somewhat  apart  from  her  surroundings,  now 
left  her,  she  tried  energetically  to  realize  the  day- 
dream of  literary  production  which  had  haunted 
her  from  time  to  time  ever  since  her  happy  days  of 
t  184] 


THE  WANDERER 

school  compositions.  Around  this  new  interest  all 
her  surplus  forces  of  imagination,  emotion,  and 
intellect  concentrated  themselves  so  exclusively 
and  ardently  that  even  the  study  of  music  lost  its 
attraction  for  a  while.  Everybody  in  the  household 
knew,  without  showing  curious  concern  about  it, 
that  Tosi  was  "up  to  something."  She  cherished 
solitude  even  more  than  was  usual  with  her,  and 
for  two  years  immoderately  indulged  her  passion 
for  late  hours.  She  finished  her  novel  and  she  also 
wrote  a  number  of  essays.  The  latter  are  character- 
istic attempts  to  attain  a  more  balanced  judgment 
of  questions  concerning  which  she  keenly  felt  out 
of  harmony  with  her  surroundings  and  times.  Thus, 
among  other  subjects,  she  discussed  the  require- 
ment of  needlework  in  girls'  schools;  the  tendency 
in  Germany  to  have  girls  taught  by  men  rather 
than  by  women ;  the  aversion  of  the  government  to 
woman's  higher  education ;  the  overestimating  of  the 
ceaseless,  and  often  useless,  activity  of  the  Grerman 
Hausfrau,  and  the  complacent  attitude  of  the  latter 
toward  women  of  intellectual  interests.  In  spite  of 
her  own  strong  aversion  to  these  things,  especially 
to  needlework  and  the  aggressive  ideal  of  an  ever 
bustling  Hausfrau,  Catd,  in  these  clever  argumen- 
tative dialogues,  allows  Laura,  her  imaginary  oppo- 
[  185  ] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

nent,  to  carry  her  point  with  convincing  eloquence. 
In  only  one  of  these  pedagogical  essays  does  Laura 
suffer  a  complete  defeat,  and  this  is  when  she  tries 
to  defend  the  raison  d'etre  of  fashionable  finishing 
schools. 

Two  years  and  a  half  thus  passed  in  congenial 
work  and  perfect  peace  of  mind, — mellowing  in- 
fluences which  brought  back  much  of  Catd's  inner 
poise.  But  her  thirst  for  adventure  was  not  yet 
quenched. 

When  in  the  spring  of  1879  Helene,  the  most 
ardent  and  spirituelle  among  the  Wenckebach  sis- 
ters, won  her  teacher's  certificate  in  Hannover  and 
came  home  ready  to  relieve  Catd  of  her  responsi- 
bilities, the  latter  was  more  than  willing  to  be  dis- 
burdened. Although  she  loved  her  home,  she  never 
liked  to  stay  long  in  "intellectually  barren"  East 
Frisia.  This  time  her  new  literary  ambition  helped 
to  make  her  restless  and  dissatisfied.  She  felt  that 
if  she  wished  to  produce  anything  worth  while, 
she  must  live  in  the  large  world  again,  rub  against 
it  and  fight  with  it  if  necessary,  but  by  all  means 
absorb  it  through  every  sense.  For  that  price  she 
was  willing  to  suffer  "slavery"  once  more.  So  she 
"sold  herself"  again, — this  time  to  a  wealthy  New 
York  merchant  of  North  German  birth,  a  self-made 
[186] 


THE  WANDERER 

man  who  wanted  a  governess  for  his  family  of  boys 
and  girls. 

The  Upganters  in  general,  and  Cato's  family  in 
particular,  gasped  at  this  newest  and  most  startling 
eccentricity.  In  the  minds  of  the  people  about  her, 
who  had  gained  their  ideas  of  America  from  stirring 
magazine  articles  and  dime  novels,  from  Cooper''s 
tales  and  Uncle  TorrCs  Ca6m,the  land  of  dollars  was 
peopled  with  wicked  slave  drivers  and  wild  cowboys, 
with  heroic  Indians  and  hypocritical  Puritans;  and 
New  York,  of  all  America,  was  held  to  be  the  in- 
fernal meeting  place  of  the  worst  elements  that  the 
New  World  harbored.  To  be  sure,  farmer  Jansen's 
son  and  shoemaker  Petersen's  daughter  had  made 
their  fortunes  over  there,  and  some  of  Frau  Marie's 
own  third  cousins  had  gained  a  comfortable  liveli- 
hood in  Illinois;  but  these  reassuring  items  were 
easily  overlooked  for  the  pleasure  of  the  grewsome 
sensations  that  America,  and  especially  New  York, 
conjured  up  in  the  imagination. 

Cato  herself  seems  to  have  been  much  impressed 
by  the  importance  of  the  step  she  was  about  to  take. 
With  unusual  care  and  deliberation  she  attended 
to  the  preparations  for  her  momentous  journey,  and, 
contrary  to  her  wont,  personally  supervised  all  neces- 
sary details, — from  the  purchasing  of  extra  thick 
[  187  ] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

wool  for  hand-knit  stockings  and  underskirts,  to 
the  construction  of  an  "American"  trunk.  Accord- 
ing to  the  regulations  of  the  North  Grerman  Lloyd, 
a  first-class  passenger  had  a  right  to  one  cubic  me- 
ter of  space  in  the  hold.  Catd  meant  to  fill  this  space, 
and  so  had  a  trunk  built  accordingly.  This  trayless 
structure,  lined  with  pink  paper  (pink  was  her 
favorite  color)  and  decorated  with  much  brass  on 
the  outside,  was  so  huge  that  neither  private  car- 
riage nor  official  coach  could  carry  it.  Nothing  but 
a  springless  open  hay  cart  would  do;  and  such  a 
wagon  it  was  that,  on  a  July  morning  at  daybreak, 
rattled  Catd  in  true  immigrant  fashion  over  the 
brick-paved  roads  to  the  distant  railway  station. 
The  family  had  been  grieved  at  this  unexpected 
emergency,  but  Catd  was  in  no  wise  disturbed  by 
it.  The  old  passionate  Wanderlust,  that  had  gnawed 
at  her  peace  all  through  the  last  months,  was  upon 
her  so  intensely  that  any  sort  of  motion  was  wel- 
come, and  the  voyage  was  one  prolonged,  delicious 
sensation  to  her,  from  the  day  she  left  Bremen 
(August  3,  1879),  to  the  morning  when,  after  a 
"quick  "trip  of  fourteen  days,  the  "Neckar"  entered 
the  "wonderfully  beautifal"  New  York  harbor. 


[  188] 


PART  IV 
THE  AMERICAN 


Among  all  the  places  I  have  known  I  have 

never  lived  so  completely  as  in  the  freedom 

here. 

The  greatest  blessing  Heaven  can  bestow  on 

mortal  man  is  to  let  him  find  full  satisfaction 

in  his  daily  work.  c.  w. 


XXV 

"rr^HE  sight  of  New  York  and  its  stupen- 
Jl.  dous  sky-scrapers,"  Catd  wrote  home,  "the 
scenes  of  frantic  welcome  at  the  arrival  of  the  boat, 
the  rush  and  roaring  life  in  the  custom  house,  made 
me  quite  dizzy."  Her  dizziness  increased  when  she 
opened  her  trunk  and  beheld  the  confusion  within, — 
her  books  on  top  of  her  hats,  her  heavy  boots  in- 
side her  one  silk  dress  of  state.  She  had  cautiously 
insured  the  tiiink  for  four  hundred  dollars,  and 
somebody  had  evidently  ransacked  it  in  search  of 
the  supposed  treasure.  But  she  easily  comforted 
herself  on  seeing  that  "the  grinning  custom-house 
officers  desisted  from  investigating  this  Sodom  and 
Gomorrah." 

With  intense  expectancy  Catd  then  sallied  forth 
into  this  New  World  that  was  to  become  her 
second  home, — the  rich  arena  for  all  her  restless 
energies,  which  had  long  craved  the  large  scope  of 
activity  that  the  Old  World  obstinately  continued 
to  grudge  to  women  of  her  stamp.  Instinctively 
she  felt  that  here  at  last  she  was  in  the  atmos- 
phere which  her  exuberant  nature  needed  for  its 
full  expansion.  With  wonderful  ease  she  dropped  all 
bands  of  European  prejudices,  sinking  her  whole, 
[191] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

unshackled  self  into  the  new  life  that  opened  be- 
fore her  enchanted  view. 

This  ease  and  the  unalloyed  pleasure  with  which 
she  adapted  herself  to  her  new  environment  were 
partly  a  result  of  the  absolute  independence  she 
was  granted  in  her  domestic  life.  "Strange  to  say," 
she  wrote  in  regard  to  this,  "I  am  allowed  at 
last  to  enjoy  the  bright  side  of  governess  existence, 
an  experience  which  at  first  seemed  quite  uncanny, 
for  one  must  get  used  even  to  good  treatment.  In 
former  positions  I  generally  had  recourse  to  the 
trick  of  imagining  myself  as  being  two  distinct 
individualities, — the  governess  and  the  human 
being.  Only  in  this  way  could  I  manage  to  pre- 
serve my  self-respect  and  inner  harmony.  This 
dualism  is  happily  not  necessary  any  more.  I  am 
treated  with  the  greatest  deference  and  kindness, 
and  so  feel  thoroughly  at  home  in  my  new  sur- 
roundings.*" Not  long  after  this  she  wrote  to  her 
sister  Helene:  "If  you  wish  to  see  Europe,  take 
your  positions  there  soon,  before  you  come  over 
here,  for  when  you  once  have  been  in  America,  you 
will  never  again  be  satisfied  to  be  a  governess  in 
Europe." 

It  is  characteristic  that  Catd,  in  her  remarkably 
voluminous  letters  from  New  York,  says  very  little 
[  192] 


i 


THE  AMERICAN 

on  the  whole  about  her  life  with  the  N.  N.'s,  a 
family  of  "honest  plodders,"^  as  she  calls  them. 
Here  and  there  she  touches  upon  her  domestic 
relations,  but  quickly  dismisses  the  subject  to 
plunge  into  descriptions  of  ever  fascinating  New 
York. 

What  impressed  her  most  powerfully  about  this 
city  was  the  largeness  and  breathless  intensity  of 
it  all.  "I  am  entirely  under  the  spell  of  the  tre- 
mendous impression  that  New  York  is  making  on 
me,"  she  wrote.  "Broadway  especially  overwhelms 
me.  That  you  must  see  with  your  own  eyes  if  you 
want  to  get  any  idea  of  the  mad  time-is-money 
spirit  that  rules  the  jostle  and  rush  of  the  motley 
crowds  there.  Old  wizard  Goethe  must  have  had 
a  conception  of  it  when  he  wrote  his  Walpurgis- 
nacht.  And  yet  what  a  difference  between  the 
tumultuous  striving  on  the  Brocken  as  Goethe  has 
depicted  it,  and  this  genial  and  large  enthusiasm 
for  business  revealed  on  Broadway.  Shopping  here 
is  not  a  burden,  but  one  of  the  chief  joys  of  exist- 
ence. I  often  join  the  crowd  on  Broadway,  or  go 
into  one  of  the  gigantic  department  stores,  in  order 
to  feel  more  intimately  a  part  of  this  whirl  of 
humanity.  It  is  everywhere  apparent  that  the  lean 
years  following  the  civil  war  are  over,  and  that 
[  193] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

America  has  once  more  entered  the  sign  of  Mammon. 
There  is  something  so  bacchanalian  in  this  dance 
about  the  golden  calf  that  even  the  looker-on  is 
carried  away  by  it.  Sempre  prestissimo  is  the  tempo 
of  the  mad  music  to  the  sounds  of  which  everybody 
rushes  forward  in  order  to  get  as  big  a  share  as 
possible  of  the  dollars  which  fortune  is  pouring 
over  this  land.  And  there  is  no  fear  of  a  lasting 
financial  stress,  for  if  America  does  fall  head  over 
heels  occasionally,  she  always  falls,  catlike,  on  her 
feet,  and  in  an  instant  is  up  on  her  tree  of  success 
again.  No  wonder  that  the  general  interest  is  'Busi- 
ness,' and  that  the  conversation  often  circles  about 
dollars  and  cents.  Nor  does  this  interest  necessarily 
signify  meanness  or  crudeness  of  spirit,  as  it  would 
in  Germany.  Business  is  a  mighty  king  here,  and 
the  dollars  are  his  genteel  vassals.  Why,  down 
town  you  will  find  whole  streets  inhabited  solely 
by  dollars  and  their  human  attendants.  Down  town, 
by  the  way,  is  as  far  from  our  house  in  Madison 
Avenue  as  Norden  is  from  Upgant.  Accordingly, 
the  conception  of  distance  varies  considerably  from 
that  current  in  Upgant.  The  other  day  I  asked 
a  caller  who  was  about  to  take  a  trip,  where  he 
was  going.  'Oh,  just  to  Europe!'  was  the  answer. 
When  I  was  questioned  as  to  my  destination  on 
[  194  ] 


THE  AMERICAN 

the  steamer,  the  usual  comment  was:  'Oh,  only  to 
New  York!'  These  two  little  words  only  a,nd  just 
used  in  this  connection  are  too  classic,  too  charac- 
teristic, to  be  passed  over  in  silence.  If  you  can't 
boast  a  ticket  to  Venus  and  back  at  least,  you  make 
absolutely  no  impression  with  your  traveling  pre- 
tensions." 

In  a  thousand  ways  Catd  tried  to  impress  her 
people  at  home  with  the  immensity  of  things  in  the 
New  World  and  the  largess  of  spirit  pervading 
all  habits  of  life  there.  She  never  tired  of  expound- 
ing to  them  the  beauty  and  convenience  of  the 
great  department  stores,  "in  which  one  can  live  all 
day  without  being  morally  obliged  to  buy  any- 
thing;" she  warmly  lauds  the  generosity  of  the 
hotel-keepers  who  open  their  waiting  rooms  freely 
to  shoppers,  and  she  waxes  fairly  dithyrambic 
in  describing  the  free  libraries  with  their  royal 
outfit  for  King  Public.  Enthusiastically  she  de- 
fends the  ever  slandered  American  ways  of  traffic, 
especially  the  "wondrous  New  York  Elevated," 
and  the  much  maligned  Yankee  methods  of  adver- 
tising. In  the  latter  she  found  so  much  real  genius 
that  she  forgot  to  be  offended  by  it,  even  when 
occasionally  it  startled  her  in  her  beloved  woods 
and  parks.  The  beauty  and  size  of  Central  Park  she 
[  195] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

pronounced  unsurpassed.  "Even  the  Imperial  Park 
at  Zarskoye  Zelo,'**  she  said,  "  would  dwindle  beside 
this  vast  pleasure  garden  for  'His  Majesty  the 
People.""'  The  new  armory  of  the  Seventh  Regi- 
ment she  calls  a  splendid  palace,  remarking  that  if 
such  a  building  were  put  up  for  German  soldiers, 
there  would  be  heard  throughout  the  Fatherland  a 
cry  of  indignation  at  such  luxury.  "America,  then," 
she  added,  "is  the  fabulous  land  that  is  willing  to 
spend  more  on  her  soldiers  than  Prussia  does.  That 
means  an  enormous  taxation  of  course,  but  strange 
to  say,  you  never  hear  an  American  grumble  about 
the  high  taxes  he  has  to  pay — listen  to  this,  Fri- 
sians! I  wish  East  Frisia  could  belong  to  the  United 
States  but  for  a  short  half  year;  in  a  jiffy  Uncle 
Sam  would  make  her  hustle  and  forget  to  grumble." 


[196] 


•■      •   •*    »   'fc«' 


K  •  •     «  « 


•«      •     >« 


C^^/^  n/&npk^y^ 


{y^ 


c 


XXVI 

How  enthusiastically  Catd  appreciated  the 
large  idealism  that  penneates  American  life 
under  its  thick  coating  of  material  interests  may  be 
seen  from  her  notes  on  a  novel  she  had  planned  to 
write  in  New  York.  "In  this  country  everybody  is,  in 
the  first  place,  a  human  being,  and  not  a  millionaire, 
a  proletarian,  or  a  professor.  Only  one  social  caste 
is  recognized,  and  that  includes  every  man,  woman, 
and  child  endowed  with  reason.  If  it  is  a  fact,  never- 
theless, that  this  grand  principle  of  American  equal- 
ity gets  clouded  here  and  there,  it  is  largely  due  to 
the  continual  influx  of  Europeans,  through  whom 
the  Old  World  influence  is  allowed  to  have  a  pass- 
ing hold  on  American  institutions.  One  will  always 
find  individuals  who  make  desperate  efforts  to  graft 
a  dry  old  slip  of  Europeanism  on  the  sturdy  and 
luxuriant  young  tree  of  American  freedom,  but  such 
people  are  dubbed  snobs  and  get  nothing  for  their 
pains  but  ridicule.  The  healthy  instinct  of  the  na- 
tion at  large  will  never  allow  the  great  underlying 
principle  of  their  national  life  to  be  crippled.  They 
are  a  free  people,  not  because  they  are  a  republic, 
but  because  they  have  rejected  the  complicated 
mechanism  of  European  social  conditions  which 
[  197] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

calls  forth  all  the  demons  of  discontent  and  intrigue, 
of  arrogance  and  servility. . .  .  The  true  American 
holds  that  condescension  on  the  one  hand  and  ser- 
vility on  the  other  must  disappear  in  the  intercourse 
of  man  and  man ;  that  if  chance  has  given  a  person 
a  good  education,  a  large  knowledge  of  the  world, 
this  person  has  no  right  to  use  his  deeper  insight 
in  order  to  humiliate  his  less  fortunate  brother,  but 
on  the  contrary  is  under  obligation  to  try  to  elevate 
him  to  his  own  level.  .  .  .  Trees  which  stand  on  a 
mountain,  the  American  would  say,  are  in  them- 
selves not  greater  than  their  comrades  in  the  valley; 
so  men  whom  fortune  has  placed  in  a  high  position 
are  not  in  themselves  greater  than  their  equals  in 
more  modest  walks  of  life.  This  principle  does  not 
breed  revolutionary  feeling  or  anarchism;  on  the 
contrary.  Watch  the  American  people,  the  so-called 
*  rabble,'  on  festive  occasions;  how  thoroughly  dig- 
nified and  decent  they  are!  See  how  calm,  polite, 
and  proudly  self-possessed  is  the  bearing  of  the  or- 
dinary common  man !  To  be  sure,  anybody  who  sees 
arrogance  and  impudence  in  the  mere  absence  of  ser- 
vility would  find  much  to  criticise  in  the  thorough- 
bred Yankee.  But  just  that  quality  which  off*ends 
Europeans,  America  demands  of  every  self-respect- 
ing citizen. . . .  One  needs  only  to  watch  the  people 
[  198] 


THE  AMERICAN 

at  a  public  concert  in  Central  Park :  there  one  finds 
a  motley  crowd  of  what  we  Europeans  would  clas- 
sify as  plebs,  middle  class,  and  haute  voice.  From 
their  conduct,  however,  you  could  not  guess  that 
there  is  any  vital  difference  in  their  education  and 
social  standing.  For  the  American,  even  in  his  work- 
man's jeans,  is  a  gentleman  and  refuses  to  cringe 
before  any  one.  If  he  makes  any  distinction  in 
greeting  he  bases  it  on  sex  and  not  on  rank.  To  a 
woman  he  takes  off  his  hat,  but  on  meeting  a  man, 
never  mind  who  this  man  may  be,  he  merely  gives  a 
cordial  sign  of  recognition,  generally  a  nod. . . .  Now 
let  a  man,  say  a  subordinate  official,  in  Gemiany, 
meet  persons  of  various  stations  of  life,  and  see  how 
plainly  he  marks  their  rank  by  the  mere  form  of  his 
greeting;  how  at  one  time  he  seems  afflicted  with 
curvature  of  the  spine,  that  disease  of  the  humble, 
and  the  next  moment  his  backbone  stiffens  with  a 
jerk.  His  friendly  nods  are  reserved  for  his  fellow 
clerks.  Meeting  the  notary  public  he  omits  the  nod, 
but  raises  his  cap  a  measured  number  of  centimeters. 
To  the  Assessor  [assistant  judge]  he  uncovers  his 
whole  bald  head,  and  the  judge  gets  a  bow  in  addi- 
tion to  this  elevating  view.  At  the  appearance  of  the 
Oberappellationsgerichtsrat  [judge  of  the  court  of 
appeals],  cap  and  backbone  describe  a  deep,  expres- 
[199] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

sive  curve.  And  behold  him  when  the  judge  of  the 
supreme  court  approaches:  the  cap  flies  from  the 
head  with  lightning  speed,  the  trunk  makes  gym- 
nastic contortions,  and  the  whole  subaltern  coun- 
tenance is  illuminated  with  bland  reverence!  (Of 
course  all  this  effort  has  been  quite  wasted  on  the 
indifferent  superiors.)  But  now  there  suddenly 
comes  into  view  an  honest  butcher,  hat  in  hand, 
glowing  with  bland  politeness.  All  appearance 
of  the  subaltern  vanishes;  in  its  place  the  sense  of 
his  own  superior  position  awakes  in  our  hero. 
Languidly  he  raises  his  hand  without  even  reach- 
ing his  cap.  His  countenance  shows  dignity, 
seriousness,  self-possession.  The  subaltern  is  now 
the  Herr  Amtsschreiher  [district  clerk],  an  imperial 
German  official  who,  if  he  continues  to  do  his  duty 
forty  years  longer,  may  enjoy  the  distinction  of  a 
fourth-class  government  decoration  before  he  dies. 
Therefore — take  heed  how  you  make  your  bow  to 
him,  you  ox-killing  plebeian!  .  .  . 

"The  fact  that  the  people  in  Europe  are  more 
ready  than  the  Americans  to  grumble  and  even 
revolt  shows  plainly  that  education  has  nothing  to 
do  with  the  getting  rid  of  social  inequalities.  Ger- 
many takes  first  place  among  all  nations  in  the 
importance  she  puts  on  the  education  of  the  people 
[  200  ] 


THE  AMERICAN 

and  the  excellence  of  public  schools.  It  is  not  to 
be  questioned  that  the  school  training  which  the 
German  laborer  gets  is,  both  quantitatively  and 
qualitatively,  far  superior  to  that  of  his  Amer- 
ican brethren.  The  self-possessed,  dignified  poise, 
the  decent  and  polite  conduct,  of  the  so-called  lower 
classes  in  America  is,  therefore,  not  the  conse- 
quence of  their  better  education,  but  the  beneficial 
result  of  social  equality.  A  government  like  ours 
in  Germany,  which  on  the  one  hand  does  every- 
thing in  its  power  to  educate  the  ignorant  masses 
into  thinking  and  reasoning  beings,  but  on  the 
other  hand  undertakes  to  promote  and  sustain 
artificial  castes — such  a  government  can  never 
expect  to  attain  that  national  harmony  which  is 
the  prime  end  of  all  national  education."" 

Practically  the  only  unmitigated  criticism  in 
which  Catd  indulges  during  these  first  years  of  her 
contact  with  American  life  is  that  directed  against 
the  apparent  lack  of  appreciation  of  high  art  as  she 
witnesses  it  in  the  theaters,  and  that  condemning  the 
methods  of  instruction  used  in  American  schools.  In 
elaboration  of  her  views  of  the  American  theaters 
I  quote  one  of  her  letters : 

"Just  at  present  an  extraordinarily  sensational 
play  is  being  given  in  one  of  the  large  theaters  here. 
[201   ] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

Thousands  of  people  crowd  there  every  night  to 
have  their  nerves  shaken.  Of  course  I  have  been  to 
see  it!  Oh,  my  goodness  gracious  sakes  alive!  I  hope 
never  in  my  life  to  see  anything  to  equal  it!  Even 
the  famous  spectacular  shows  of  St.  Petersburg  sink 
into  insignificance  before  this  performance.  Let  me 
try  to  give  you  an  idea  of  it.  The  scene  of  action 
in  one  act  is  a  big  ocean  steamer,  a  cross-section  of 
which  is  represented  on  the  stage  with  wonderful 
realism.  It  is  night,  and  the  moon  shines.  A  few 
passengers  are  still  walking  on  deck,  but  most  of 
them  lie  asleep  in  their  cabins.  All  of  a  sudden  an 
infernal  machine  explodes  in  the  hold  with  such  a 
terrific  thunderclap  that  even  I  jumped  with  fright 
off  my  cushioned  seat  in  the  parquet.  Pillai*s  of  fire 
burst  out  of  the  steamer,  the  decks  cave  in,  sheets 
of  flames  and  clouds  of  smoke  shoot  from  the  cabins. 
The  passengers,  starting  from  their  beds,  scream 
wildly  for  help;  little  children  run  to  and  fro  in 
agonized  fear;  in  frantic  confusion  people  rush  up- 
stairs, downstairs,  into  the  flames,  overboard.  The 
captain  roars  out  commands,  and  shoots  down  sev- 
eral sailors;  and  all  the  time  the  grewsome  wails  of 
human  voices  are  half  drowned  by  the  clang-bang 
of  a  tremendous  orchestra.  The  sounds  and  confu- 
sion reach  a  last- judgment-day  pitch  when  with 
[  202  ] 


THE  AMERICAN 

a  thundering  crash  the  whole  upper  part  of  the  ship 
gives  way.  When  the  curtain  falls  on  this  wild  chaos 
of  flames  and  misery,  and  the  whole  theater  is  filled 
with  powder  smoke,  the  audience  bursts  into  a 
deafening  roar  of  applause.  Everybody  is  keyed  up 
to  the  last  notch;  whoever  doesn't  feel  his  nerves 
then,  does  n't  have  any,  and  never  will  have  any. . . . 
The  third  act  is  a  wonderful  sea  picture  in  which 
the  remnant  of  the  shipwrecked,  clinging  to  a  burned 
spar,  are  floating  about  in  the  dusk  on  the  miracu- 
lously natural  ocean  waves.  The  three  starved  crea- 
tures divide  the  last  drops  of  water;  one  of  them 
dies,  the  others  are  about  to  kill  each  other,  when, 
lo!  the  sun  rises,  revealing  a  sail  on  the  horizon. 
It  comes  nearer,  nearer;  the  unfortunate  wretches 
manage  to  cry  out,  to  signal — and  at  last  are  saved. 
The  end  is  that  one  of  the  rascals  who  put  the 
explosive  in  the  boat  is  hanged;  the  other  one  falls 
four  stories  in  an  elevator  and  so  gets  his  deserts. 
Truly,  one  can't  ask  more  for  one's  money ! 

"The  whole  performance  is  doubtless  a  great 
triumph  of  machinery,  but  isn't  it  madness  to  pre- 
sent such  a  frightful  catastrophe  on  the  stage !  Prob- 
ably the  overwrought  public  that  has  interest  only 
for  the  never-before-seen  [das  Niedagewesene]  needs 
such  claptrap  in  order  to  get  the  excitement  it 
[  203  ] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

craves.  If  you  tried  to  present  Goethe''s  Iphigenie 
you  would  have  to  pay  the  people  to  get  them  even 
inside  the  theater Time  is  money.  If  the  Amer- 
ican is  to  be  willing  to  spend  any  of  this  precious 
commodity  outside  his  business,  he  must  be  offered 
something  that  'pays,' — not  a  monotonous  clas- 
sical drama,  but  a  performance  which  in  a  way  com- 
bines theater,  concert,  and  circus.  For  the  same 
reason  he  does  n't  approve  of  pauses  between  the 
acts, — time  would  be  lost,  he  thinks,  if  something 
were  not  going  on  continually."  "And  yet,'"*  the 
amused  critic  adds,  "such  is  the  paradox  of  human 
nature  that  you  will  find  this  same  creature  the  most 
unpunctual  of  individuals  in  his  official  and  social 
functions.  He  is  late  at  meetings,  late  at  parties, 
late  at  the  play,  and  consequently  one  has  to  do 
a  great  deal  of  waiting  here  for  'the  other  fellow.'" 

Her  criticism  of  American  methods  of  instruc- 
tion is  concisely  expressed  in  a  letter  to  her  teacher 
friend  at  Hannover: 

"I  am  thoroughly  disappointed  in  the  American 
schools  and  colleges  that  I  have  visited  so  far.  The 
buildings  are  splendid,  the  equipment  is  most  gen- 
erous, the  salaries  are  good,  but  the  methods  of 
teaching  are  antediluvian, — the  same  old  anti- 
quated cut-and-dried  tricks  of  memory,  just  as  if 
[  204  ] 


THE  AMERICAN 

Pestalozzi  and  Froebel  and  Herbart  had  never  lived. 
I  suspect  it  often  happens  here — more  often  by 
far  than  in  Germany — that  people  have  become 
pedagogues  for  no  other  reason  than  that  they  were 
too  lazy  to  chop  wood.  If  you  want  to  find  good 
teachers  or  people  who  have  actually  acquired  a 
scholarly  training  in  this  country,  you  have  to  hunt 
them  out  with  a  lantern.  The  lack  of  exact  know- 
ledge is  a  great  flaw  in  the  intellectual  make-up  of 
a  nation  that  in  all  other  respects  is  so  splendidly 
progressive." 

But  loath  to  acknowledge  that  anything  in  her 
beloved  land  of  progress  and  liberty  could  be 
wholly  and  unconditionally  bad,  Catd  adds  in  a 
postscript :  "Though  the  American  student  is  not  so 
well  trained  intellectually  as  his  German  fellow  stu- 
dent, he  far  surpasses  the  latter  in  practical  ethics. 
How  temperate  and  industrious  these  young  peo- 
ple are  in  general!  Gei-man  university  life  would 
be  out  of  the  question  here,  because  the  American 
student  does  not  fight  duels,  has  no  appreciation 
of  the  distinguished  absurdities  of  the  Corps  life,* 
and  does  not  drink.  Viewed  from  the  standpoint 
of  an  American  student,  Europe  is  on  a  very  low 
moral  plane." 

♦  A  Corps  is  a  secret  society  among  German  university  students. 
[  205  ] 


XXVII 

ENCOURAGED  by  the  success  of  her  journal- 
istic efforts,  which  the  New  Yorker  Staatszei- 
timg  printed,  but  did  not  pay  for,  Catd's  literary 
ambition  took  stronger  hold  of  her  than  ever  be- 
fore. Her  teaching  of  seven  hours  per  day,  con- 
tinued for  three  years  without  any  other  break  than 
the  Sabbath,  had  at  last  begun  to  tell  on  her  nerves, 
and  she  found  that  she  could  not  utilize  the  mid- 
night hours  for  wi'iting  as  she  had  been  able  to  do 
thus  far.  So  in  1882  she  gave  up  her  position  at  the 
N.  N.'s  and  turned  to  private  tutoring.  "It  will  be 
uphill  work,"  she  wrote,  "but  I  can  hope  for  the 
best,  because  I  know  my  business  thoroughly  now. 
For  the  success  of  this  business,  which  will  have 
to  be  pursued  in  the  so-called  fashionable  world, 
it  is  necessai-y  above  all  to  possess — now  guess 
what!  'A  broad  culture  and  a  trained  intellect?' 
Wrong,  guess  again!  'A  teacher's  certificate  and 
experience?'  Off  again!  'Polish  and  refinement  of 
manners?'  No,  no,  indeed!  But  you  won't  guess, 
for  it  never  occurred  even  to  me  until  the  agent  to 
whom  I  applied  for  private  pupils  had  told  me. 
Said  agent  frankly  confessed  that  she  could  not  pos- 
sibly recommend  me  to  the  better  families  unless  I 
[  206  ] 


THE  AMERICAN 

put  on  more  elegant  clothes  and  changed  my  way 
of  dressing  my  hair.  'The  essential  consideration  is,' 
she  said,  'not  what's  in  your  head,  but  what's  on  it.' 
So  I  went  to  a  little  Parisian,  who  knew  what  the 
matter  was  even  before  I  had  explained.  'If  you 
don't  want  to  take  the  trouble  to  dress  your  hair 
carefully  every  day,'  she  said,  '  why  don't  you  wear 
a  false  front?'  I  was  just  about  to  shout  a  deter- 
mined Never!  when  she  dexterously  put  one  of 
those  curly  things  on  my  head.  And  really — the 
little  curls  framed  in  my  face  quite  pleasingly  and 
looked  exactly  as  if  they  had  grown  on  my  own 
scalp.  Now  if  fortune  comes  my  way,  you  will  know 
what  has  attracted  the  fickle  thing." 

But  in  spite  of  this  bait  pupils  did  not  come  in 
very  fast  at  first,  and  Catd's  modest  savings  began 
to  dwindle  rapidly,  although  she  economized  much 
in  her  own  peculiar  way.  She  not  only  brought  her- 
self to  live  in  a  three-dollar  room  in  a  large  tene- 
ment house  on  Tenth  Street, — which  meant  a  great 
deprivation  for  her, — but  she  also  managed  to  exist 
without  a  piano,  and,  in  some  mysterious  way,  to 
cook  her  own  dinners. 

All  the  while  she  eagerly  followed  up  every  op- 
portunity for  work,  accepting  every  kind  of  pupil, 
from  the  daughters  of  the  wealthy  aristocrat,  whom 
[  207  ] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

she  had  to  chaperon  and  to  provide  with  German 
conversation  on  their  daily  drives  and  walks,  to  the 
sons  of  a  rich  Jewess,  whose  overbearing  manners 
Catd's  diplomatic  tact  soon  changed  into  an  at- 
titude of  admiration  and  obsequious  respect.  She 
also  gave  itinerant  instruction  in  advanced  litera- 
ture to  a  paralyzed  lady  while  the  latter  was  wheeled 
through  Central  Park,  and  she  taught  a  company 
of  clerks  to  write  German  business  letters. 

When  at  last  she  had  secured  enough  work  of 
this  kind  to  "keep  her  alive,"  and  had  settled  down 
in  peace  and  joy  to  devote  her  free  time  entirely 
to  literary  production,  she  came  to  the  painful  con- 
clusion that,  after  all,  she  did  not  know  life  suffi- 
ciently to  be  able  to  reproduce  it.  "After  having 
written  one  long  romance,""  she  told  her  friend, 
"and  having  half  completed  a  second,  I  at  last  saw 
that  a  thorough  knowledge  of  human  nature  and  a 
scholarly  comprehension  of  facts  form  the  top  steps 
of  the  ladder  of  all  philosophy.  I  then  understood 
how  foolish  had  been  my  attempt  to  get  to  the 
top  without  first  learning  to  climb  the  steps  lead- 
ing to  it.  Those  literary  productions  of  mine  were, 
in  general,  youthful  offenses." 

Aside  from  an  occasional  article  to  the  Staats- 
zeitungy  which  at  her  request  was  willing  to  pay  her 
[  208  ] 


THE  AMERICAN 

now,  she  stopped  her  literary  work  and  took  up  a 
"scientific  study  of  astronomy,  geology,  philology, 
and  other  ologies  and  onomies."  Strange  to  say, 
the  possibility  of  a  university  education  in  America 
never  occurred  to  her.  "We  poor  daughters  of  Eve," 
she  wrote  at  this  time,  "cannot,  unfortunately,  at- 
tend a  university  and  are  therefore  doubly  handi- 
capped in  our  efforts,  in  contrast  to  the  lords  of 
creation  who,  after  politely  closing  their  schools  of 
learning  to  us,  and  putting  us  off  with  a  wretched 
bit  of  high-school  education,  persuade  themselves 
that  the  'intellectual  inferiority'  of  the  'eternally 
feminine'  is  inborn. . . .  Now  that  I  want  to  compete 
with  men  I  must  throw  off  the  yoke  of  my  feminine 
education  and  try  to  get  a  thorough  masculine 
training.  In  doing  this  I  shall  have  to  box  the 
ears  of  many  prejudices  sanctified  by  tradition,  and 
shall,  in  the  eyes  of  many  of  my  compatriots,  become 
an  inkfish  and  a  bluestocking.  But  I  don't  care  a 
straw.  You  may  rest  assured  that  in  my  manners 
I  shall  observe  simplicity  and  decorum,  although 
I  feel  that  with  my  pen  I  should  like  to  break  down 
a  Chinese  wall. ...  I  have  enough  big  schemes  to 
occupy  me  through  life,  but  the  thermometer  of 
my  presumption  will  fall, — have  no  fear.  There  are 
so  many  beneficent  wet  blankets  for  cases  like  mine. 
[  209  ] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

I  expect  failures,  and  already  have  learned  calmly 
to  resign  myself  to  them,  knowing  that  striving 
and  struggling  always  strengthen  us,  whether  in 
the  end  we  be  victorious  or  not." 

She  could  apply  her  philosophy  when  her  first 
schoolbook — a  text-book  of  physical  and  astro- 
nomical geogi-aphy  for  young  children — was  re- 
jected by  the  German  publisher  on  account  of  the 
enormous  expense  that  its  printing  would  involve. 
Firmly  convinced  that  Anschauung  was  the  founda- 
tion of  all  knowledge,  she  had  based  her  work  on 
this  principle,  and  in  a  book  of  a  thousand  pages 
had  tried  to  reconstruct  the  world  for  the  minds  of 
the  very  young  in  graphic  descriptions  helped  by 
innumerable  illustrations.  Clearly,  it  was  lack  of 
moderation  again  that  had  stranded  her.  But  un- 
daunted she  immediately  set  herself  a  new  task 
suggested  by  the  much  interested  publisher, — that 
of  writing  a  text-book  on  physical  geography  for 
advanced  students.  Here,  however,  befell  that  stroke 
of  good  fortune  which  settled  all  her  difficulties  and 
made  her  "live  happy  ever  after." 


[210] 


XXVIII 

IT  was  in  the  early  summer  of  1883  that  a  fara* 
ily  council  was  held  at  the  home  of  Mrs.  N.  N.'s 
young  sister-in-law,  on  Madison  Avenue,  New  York. 
The  present  center  and  subject  of  it  was  Catd 
Wenckebach,  the  chief  counselor  Mrs.  Precht,  Tiee 
Kapp,  an  intimate  friend  of  this  branch  of  the 
N.  N.  family  and  formerly  professor  of  German  at 
Vassar  College.  This  distinguished  lady  had  some- 
times met  Catd  at  Mrs.  N.  N.'s  musical  gatherings, 
and  had  at  once  been  attracted  to  the  valiant 
compatriot  who  so  evidently  stood  apart  from  her 
companions  and  yet  moved  among  men  with  the 
joy  and  freedom  of  the  elect.  With  keen  insight 
Mrs.  Precht  had  concluded  that  Catd''s  mind  was 
too  deeply  pedagogical  ever  to  win  much  success  in 
the  field  of  either  literature  or  music;  that  the  only 
place  where  her  special  genius  could  grow  and  bear 
fruit  was  the  class-room  of  an  American  college  for 
women.  It  was  decided,  therefore,  that  Catd  should 
take  the  preliminary  step  of  attending  the  Sauveur 
School  of  Languages  at  Amherst.  The  old  yet  ever 
new  "natural  method,""  that  Dr.  Sauveur  and  his 
staff  of  teachers  advocated  and  illustrated  in  their 
class-rooms,  was  at  the  height  of  its  popularity  just 
[211   ] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

then.  A  large  number  of  teachers,  among  whom 
were  several  college  professors,  flocked  to  his  school 
every  summer  to  study.  Incidentally,  opportunities 
were  also  offered  to  the  teachers  for  getting  into 
touch  with  leading  educators  in  their  own  fields. 

Catd,  who  herself  at  times  was  poignantly  con- 
scious of  the  fact  that  she  had  not  yet  found  her 
own  sphere  of  work,  and  who  of  late  had  seriously 
contemplated  the  advantages  of  a  business  career, 
was  more  than  willing  to  try  this  new  scheme, 
especially  since  but  one  dollar  of  the  earnings  that 
this  year  of  journalism  and  book -writing  had 
brought  her  was  left  in  her  pocket.  Mrs.  Precht 
also  succeeded  in  making  her  accept  the  loan  that 
was  generously  offered  to  cover  the  expense  of  the 
experiment. 

Under  the  gay  wing  of  a  worldly-wise  French 
lady,  also  of  Vassar,  Cat6  was  then  triumphantly 
conducted  to  Amherst.  Here  it  became  at  once  evi- 
dent to  her  that  Mrs.  Precht  had  augured  rightly. 
Her  letters  show  how  the  atmosphere  at  the  sum- 
mer school  immediately  inspired  her,  and  how 
deeply  the  intimate  intercourse  with  these  earnest 
students  and  teachers  satisfied  her.  "lam  immeasur- 
ably happy  here,"  she  wrote  home,  "and  incredibly 
busy  too.  I  attend  two  classes  in  German  a  day, 
[212] 


THE  AMERICAN 

two  in  French,  and  one  in  —  Greek!  I  wish  I 
could  describe  the  enthusiasm  that  is  in  the  air 
here, — fathers,  mothers,  children,  young  men  and 
maidens,  bachelors  and  spinsters  {many  spinsters !), 
all  go  to  school  together.  'Late  girls'  of  sixty,  even, 
learn  their  lessons  with  touching  ardor  in  spite  of 
white  hair  and  wrinkles." 

And  then  comes  the  triumphant  and  jubilant 
letter  of  July  12,  in  which  she  tells  of  that  turn 
in  her  life  which  was  to  help  her  steer  into  quiet 
waters  at  last: 

"Hurrah!  I  have  made  a  superb  catch, — not  a 
widower  nor  a  bachelor,  but  something  infinitely 
superior!  I  must  not  anticipate,  though,  but  pro- 
ceed according  to  programme.  So  let  me  give  you 
the  prelude  first  of  what  follows. 

"The  faculty  here,  overwhelmed  by  the  great 
number  of  students  in  their  classes,  felt  that  they 
alone  could  not  do  them  justice  in  their  teaching, 
so  they  offered  some  of  their  sections  to  a  number 
of  mature  persons  among  their  pupils.  Being  de- 
lighted at  the  chance  of  making  myself  known,  I 
took  charge  of  a  class  in  elementary  German,  and 
I  did  my  level  best  to  satisfy  my  audience  of  five. 
Very  soon  this  audience  increased;  the  principal 
of  a  school  of  languages  near  by  joined  the  class, 
[213] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

also  several  Amherst  students,  divers  high-school 
teachers,  and  two  benches  fall  of  young  girls.  My 
zeal  increased,  of  course.  And  now,  the  prelude 
ended,  prick  your  ears ! 

"The  other  day,  when  I  was  in  my  room  digging 
away  at  my  Greek  lessons,  the  landlady  brings  in 
three  visiting  cards,  remarking  that  the  three  la- 
dies who  wish  to  see  me  are  in  the  reception  room. 
I  look  at  the  cards  and  read:  Miss  Alice  Free- 
man, President  (in  German,  Rector  Magmjicus)  of 
Wellesley  College;  Mrs.  Durant,  Treasurer;  and 
Miss  Denio,  Professor  of  German  Literature  at 
Wellesley  College.  (Wellesley,  you  must  know,  is 
the  largest  and  most  magnificent  of  all  the  women's 
colleges  in  the  United  States.)  I  immediately  com- 
prehended, of  course,  that  these  were  three  lions 
\grosse  Tiere\  and  I  began  to  have  curious  presenti- 
ments. Fortunately,  I  was  in  correct  dress,  so  that  I 
could  rush  down  into  our  elegant  reception  room. 
Here  I  made  a  solemn  bow,  the  three  ladies  return- 
ing the  compliment.  The  president,  a  lady  who 
must  be  a  good  deal  younger  than  myself,  a  real 
Ph.D.  (of  Philosophy  and  History),  told  me  that 
she  had  heard  of  me  and  therefore  wished  to  see  me 
in  regard  to  a  vacancy  at  Wellesley  College,  which, 
according  to  the  statutes,  must  not  be  filled  by 
[  214  ] 


THE  AMERICAN 

a  man  so  long  as  a  woman  could  be  procured.  The 
woman  she  was  looking  for  must  be  able,  she  said, 
to  give  lectures  on  German  literature  in  German, 
and  to  expound  the  works  of  German  writers  thor- 
oughly; she  would  engage  me  for  this  position, 
she  added,  if  she  found  that  I  was  the  right  person 
for  it. 

"I  was  dumfounded  at  the  mere  suggestion  of 
this  gift  of  Heaven  coming  to  me,  for  I  had  heard 
so  many  beautiful  things  about  Wellesley  that  the 
idea  of  possibly  getting  a  position  there  totally 
dazed  me.  Summoning  up  courage,  however,  I  con- 
trolled my  wild  joy,  and  pulling  myself  together 
with  determination,  I  gave  the  ladies  the  desired 
account  of  my  studies,  my  journalistic  work,  etc., 
whereupon  the  president  informed  me  that  she 
would  attend  my  class  the  next  day.  It  goes  without 
saying  that  I  prepared  my  lesson  with  the  utmost 
care.  How  little  did  I  anticipate  the  nature  of  the 
fiery  furnace  that  was  being  set  up  for  me ! 

"When  I  was  standing  before  my  class  the  next 
morning  in  anxious  expectation,  the  president, 
accompanied  by  the  Amherst  professor  of  German, 
came  in — not,  however,  to  hear  me  teach  my  well 
prepared  lesson !  *I  should  prefer  to  hear  you  lec- 
turing,' she  said  to  me  with  a  charming  but  some- 
[215] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

what  artful  smile,  her  big  brown  eyes  dancing  with 
life,  'and  so  I  beg  you  to  go  with  us  to  Professor 
X's  class-room.  I  know,'  she  continued,  cutting  me 
short,  'what  you  are  going  to  say:  you  are  not 
prepared  to  speak  before  this  advanced  German 
class,  you  don't  even  know  the  subject  which  is  to 
be  treated  to-day, — but  that  is  precisely  why  I 
wish  to  see  you  do  iV 

"Imagine  my  confusion!  However,  I  could  not 
very  well  stand  there  Hke  a  fool,  stammering  'I  must 
not,  may  not,  cannot,'  and  so,  steadying  my  voice, 
I  told  Miss  Freeman  that  I  was  willing  to  try.  The 
professor  then  explained  that  he  was  discussing  the 
first  act  of  Schiller's  Maria  Stuart  with  his  class, 
and  leading  the  way  into  the  crowded  lecture  hall 
he  introduced  me  to  the  audience  and  put  a  book 
into  my  hands.  A  fine  situation  this!  Here  I  stood, 
entirely  unprepared  to  satisfy  the  critical  assembly, 
with  the  three  Fates  in  the  dim  background, 
and  all  eyes  staring  at  me.  At  this  crucial  moment 
I  suddenly  remembered  that  even  old  Jansen,  the 
village  schoolmaster,  had  not  been  ignorant  of  the 
subject  I  was  to  treat,  and  a  voice  within  me  said, 
'Courage!  you  must  know  something  about  it  too !' 
Luckily,  I  had  to  begin  my  lecture  with  the  words 
of  Mary:  'Ah,  this  unfortunate  law,  it  is  the  woe- 
[216] 


THE  AMERICAN 

fill  source  of  all  my  suffering.'  About  this  unfor- 
tunate law  many  things  could  be  said;  in  saying 
some  of  them  I  got  rid  of  my  embarrassment,  so 
that  I  did  not  get  stuck ;  moreover,  I  had  the  good 
sense  to  direct  my  occasional  questions  exclusively 
to  the  professors  present,  by  which  method  I  got 
just  the  answers  I  wanted. 

"After  the  lecture  I  myself  felt  as  a  wounded 
French  soldier  may  have  felt  after  the  battle  of 
Sedan,  but  the  Fates,  the  Fates,  were  satisfied.  They 
forthwith  offered  me  the  position  of  head  teacher 
in  the  German  Department  at  Wellesley. .  . .  Now 
you  think,  I  suppose,  that  I  fell  round  the  necks 
of  these  angels  for  joy!  I  didn't,  though!" 

No,  indeed,  she  did  not.  She  conscientiously  fol- 
lowed the  often  repeated  warning  of  Mrs.  Precht, 
her  guardian  angel,  never  under  any  circumstances 
to  be  so  un-American  as  to  cheapen  her  services  by 
pressing  them.  Like  the  very  sensible  businesswo- 
man into  which,  gradually,  she  seems  to  have  de- 
veloped from  this  time  on,  she  delayed  accepting 
the  offer,  agreeing,  after  a  conference  of  two  hours, 
to  visit  Wellesley  in  company  with  Mademoiselle 
See,  the  French  professor-elect. 

About  this  visit  she  writes:  "We  were  received 
with  open  arms. . . .  The  place  in  itself  is  so  beauti- 
[  217  ] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

ful  that  we  could  hardly  realize  its  being  merely 
a  school.  The  Royal  Palace  in  Berlin  is  small  com- 
pared to  the  main  building,  which  in  length  and 
stateliness  of  appearance  surpasses  even  the  great 
Winter  Palace  in  St.  Petersburg.  The  entrance  hall 
is  decorated  with  magnificent  palms,  with  valuable 
paintings,  and  choice  statuary.  The  walls  in  all  the 
corridors  are  covered  with  fine  engravings;  there  are 
carpets  everywhere  and  elegant  pieces  of  furniture; 
there  is  gas,  steam  heat,  and  a  big  elevator;  every- 
thing, down  to  the  bathrooms,  is  princely.  . . .  Ma- 
demoiselle See  and  I  were  intoxicated  by  the  beauty 
of  the  place,  and  by  the  attentions  shown  us.  The 
fair  president  actually  offered  to  row  us  with  her 
own  aristocratic  little  hands  across  the  moonlit 
lake!" 

But  there  were  more  substantial  attractions  in 
Wellesley  for  the  eager  woman  than  the  mere 
beauty  of  the  place, — however  great  and  entranc- 
ing this  appeared.  For  her  the  personal  freedom  and 
independence  which  the  new  life  promised,  the 
large  amount  of  leisure  for  private  work,  the  "  splen- 
did equipment"  of  laboratories  and  library,  the  as- 
sociation with  large,  well  trained  minds,  and  last, 
not  least,  the  rare  opportunities  for  learning,  study- 
ing, growing, — this  was  the  real  manna  she  had 
[218] 


THE  AMERICAN 

hungered  for  during  all  the  years  of  conscious 
intellectual  life.  Of  course,  she  was  "kind  enough" 
to  accept  the  position  offered,  although  it  was  not 
especially  lucrative.  "But  what  is  a  high  salary," 
she  exclaims,  "in  comparison  to  the  ease  and  en- 
thusiasm with  which  I  can  here  plow  a  new  field 
of  work !  That,  and  the  honor  attached  to  the  posi- 
tion, are  worth  more  to  me  than  thousands  of  dol- 
lars. I  am  to  be  a  regular  grosses  Tier  now  myself, 
— what  fiin,  after  having  been  a  beast  of  burden 
so  long!" 

In  closing  this  exultant  account  of  her  first  im- 
pressions of  WeUesley,  she  begs  her  family,  "for 
Heaven's  and  all  Saints'  sake,"  not  to  use  the  hated 
"Cato"  any  more  in  addressing  their  letters,  but 
to  remember  her  pupils,  and  henceforth  call  her 
"Carla,"  the  name  she  now  legally  adopts  in  honor 
of  her  beloved  father  CarL 

And  thus  it  happened  that  in  the  fall  of  1883 
Carla  Wenckebach  became  a  part  of  Wellesley  life. 


[219] 


XXIX 

"  A  S  I  look  back  to  the  year  of  my  entrance  to 
jr\.  Wellesley,  1883,  and  try  to  recall  my  first 
impressions  of  Fraulein  Wenckebach,  I  find  that 
the  picture  which  presents  itself  is  not  that  of  the 
teacher,  but  of  the  individual.  I  see  her,  not  on  the 
platform  of  the  class-room,  but  at  the  reception 
given  to  the  Freshman  class.  The  impression  is  as 
vivid  as  if  I  had  received  it  only  yesterday.  She 
wore  a  light  blue  brocaded  silk  dress,  plainly  made 
and  ill-fitting.  Across  her  breast  was  the  heavy 
gold  chain  with  the  Maltese  cross  pendant  which 
she  always  wore.  Her  hair  was  drawn  plainly  back 
from  her  face  and  wound  in  a  tight  braid  about  her 
head.  She  was  standing  a  little  apart  from  the  rest, 
near  the  door  of  the  reception  room,  apparently 
absorbed  in  watching  the  passing  crowd.  One 
would  have  expected  the  thoughtless  tongues  of  the 
college  students  to  jest  at  her  unusual  appearance, 
but  the  simplicity,  the  sincerity,  and  the  strength, 
which  even  the  most  careless  observer  could  not  fail 
to  see  in  her  face,  worked  respect  at  once." 

This  description,  given  by  one  of  the  few  stu- 
dents who  knew  Fraulein  Wenckebach  intimately, 
faithfully  reproduces  the  characteristic  impression 
[  220  ] 


THE  AMERICAN 

that  her  personality  made  on  the  college  at  large. 
A  few  little  items  might  have  been  added,  per- 
haps, to  complete  the  picture, — the  occasional  rip- 
ple of  joy  and  fun  in  the  questioning  blue  eyes, 
and  the  surprising  youthfulness  of  her  appearance, 
which  so  often  tempted  freshmen  into  extending 
cheery  "halloes''  of  fellowship  to  the  little  pro- 
fessor. "You  are  a  freshman,  aren''t  you?"  one  of 
them  said  to  her  at  this  reception,  embracing  the 
blue  brocade;  "come,  let's  be  chummy;  I  am  alone, 
too  I"  The  professor,  with  much  hilarity,  proceeded 
to  do  as  she  was  bid,  when  the  freshman  saw  light 
and  fled. 

With  her  youthful  looks,  and  above  all  with 
her  youthful  heart,  this  newcomer  was  in  perfect 
touch  with  the  "atmosphere  of  youth  and  aspiration 
and  high  adventure"  that  pervaded  the  Wellesley 
world  in  the  "splendid  decade  of  the  eighties." 
"It  was  not  only  that  we  were  young,"  a  distin- 
guished alumna  writes;  "the  college  was  young,  too, 
and  so  was  our  president."  All  these  youthful  spirits 
were  "flushed  with  the  feeling  of  power  and  priv- 
ilege," and  none  more  so  than  the  sturdy  German 
who  after  long  years  of  patient  and  courageous 
groping  had  at  last  found  her  way  into  her  earthly 
paradise. 

[221  ] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

Inspired  by  the  beauty  of  the  task  before  her, 
and  glorying  in  its  difficulties,  Fraulein  Wencke- 
bach developed  a  phenomenal  working  power.  ''The 
amount  of  mental  labor  she  accomplished  in  these 
first  years,*"  one  of  her  colleagues  writes,  "was 
truly  astonishing.  One  could  hardly  realize  that 
she  ever  slept."  Before  two  years  had  passed  she 
had  reorganized  the  Department  of  German  from 
its  foundation  and  had  filled  it  with  her  own  vital 
power.  She  herself,  during  those  first  years,  taught 
every  grade  of  work, — from  the  most  elementary 
to  Faust  in  the  senior  year,  and  in  doing  so  some- 
times doubled  the  number  of  teaching  hours  fall- 
ing to  her  share.  She  published  the  first  of  that 
series  of  text-books  (Deutsche  GrammatiJc,Anschaur- 
ungsunterricht,  Lesehuch)  that  were  to  illustrate 
and  support  the  "new  methods'"  in  language  teach- 
ing recently  advocated  by  Klotzsch  and  Lehmann, 
by  Victor  Pfeil  and  other  German  scholars.  These 
methods,  which  in  their  essential  features  have  now 
gained  universal  approbation,  were  at  that  time 
tabooed  by  the  colleges  on  account  of  their  alleged 
unscholarliness,  and  they  brought  down  a  good 
deal  of  paternal  as  well  as  hostile  criticism  on  the 
intrepid  professor  of  German  at  Wellesley.  But 
filled  with  the  courage  of  genius,  she  was  not  easily 
[  222  ] 


THE  AMERICAN 

put  down,  and  pursued  the  way  of  the  pioneer, 
knowing  that  she  was  marching  in  the  vanguard 
of  progress,  and  that  derision  would  sooner  or  later 
change  into  approbation. 

And  so  it  did.  It  was  not  ten  years  after  her 
coming  to  Wellesley  that  the  president  of  a  prom- 
inent New  England  college  for  men  proclaimed 
Fraulein  Wenckebach  to  be  one  of  the  most  dis- 
tinguished leaders  in  her  field  of  work, — the  reform 
of  language  teaching;  that  at  the  Columbian  Ex- 
position she  was  awarded  a  "Diploma  of  Honor- 
able Mention""  for  her  text-books;  and  that  wher- 
ever progress  was  allowed  to  enter  the  domain  of 
language  instruction,  the  "natural  methods'"  were 
sweeping  away  the  sterile  dregs  of  mediaeval  tra- 
dition. 

In  all  her  endeavors  to  build  up  a  model  German 
Department,  in  all  her  struggles  with  obdurate 
secondary  schools  that  were  loth  to  give  up  the  old 
comfortable  routine  of  translation,  the  German 
professor  was  loyally  supported  by  her  admired 
president.  Miss  Freeman  seems  to  have  had  implicit 
faith  in  Fraulein  Wenckebach'^s  pedagogical  genius, 
and  to  have  recognized  that  her  personality  and 
work  were  of  vital  importance  to  Wellesley's  repu- 
tation and  progress. 

[  223  ] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

Ardent  in  the  pursuit  of  schemes  that  might 
serve  for  the  advancement  of  her  beloved  college, 
Miss  Freeman  soon  found  ways  and  means  to  utilize 
Fraulein  Wenckebach'^s  unusual  gifts  even  outside 
the  German  Department.  Courses  in  the  history 
and  science  of  teaching  had  recently  been  intro- 
duced in  a  few  colleges.  Wellesley,  too,  Miss  Free- 
man decreed,  must  have  its  courses  in  pedagogy, 
and  Fraulein  Wenckebach  must  start  the  new  en- 
terprise. The  indefatigable  German  gladly  agreed 
on  condition  that  she  might  thereby  be  exempted 
from  the  dreaded  necessity  of  offering  her  "volun- 
tary" services  in  the  field  of  religious  instruction. 
The  nucleus  of  a  Department  of  Pedagogy  that 
Fraulein  Wenckebach  then  created  soon  throbbed, 
like  the  German  Department,  with  the  life  of  a 
personality  that  seemed  endowed  with  almost  un- 
natural energy  and  endurance. 

"It  is  madness  to  slave  as  you  do,"  her  anxious 
fiiend  and  sister  Helene  wrote  to  her  at  this  time. 
"It  is  a  joy  to  live,"  responded  the  indomitable 
professor  of  German,  instructor  in  pedagogy,  and 
prolific  writer  of  text-books. 

And  this  new  joy  of  living,  felt  in  the  midst 
of  heavy  responsibilities,  was  deep  and  lasting. 
"Among  all  the  places  I  have  known,  I  have  never 
[  224  ] 


THE  AMERICAN 

lived  so  completely  as  in  the  freedom  here,"  she  said. 
"The  greatest  blessing  that  Heaven  can  bestow  on 
mortal  man,"  she  wi-ote  in  1886,  "is  to  let  him  find 
fall  satisfaction  in  his  daily  work.  This  priceless  gift 
has  fallen  to  my  share,  and  I  feel  a  deep  gratitude 
toward  my  Creator,  who  has  rescued  me  out  of  my 
Cinderella  existence  and  has  brought  me  into  this 
Elysium.  What  a  splendid,  independent,  highly 
respected  position  I  have  here ;  what  unlimited  pos- 
sibilities for  educating  myself  and  for  exerting  a 
noble  influence  on  others;  what  privilege  to  pour 
into  the  receptive  mind  of  young  American  girls 
the  fullness  of  all  that  is  precious  about  the  German 
spirit ;  and  how  enthusiastically  they  receive  all  that 
I  can  give  them!" 

Thus  the  peculiar  problem  of  her  spiritual  exist- 
ence was  solved  at  last.  She  had  found  the  atmos- 
phere into  which  her  personality  fitted,  in  which 
the  self-contained  and  solitary  life  of  a  scholar  that 
she  craved  was  an  indispensable  condition  of  the 
power  over  others  which  her  nature  imperiously 
demanded.  That  these  "others"  appealed  to  her  less 
in  the  shape  of  separate  individuals  than  in  the 
congregate  form  of  classes  (preferably  large  classes) 
and  other  collective  bodies  of  individuals  was  one 
of  the  laws  of  her  nature  that  Wellesley  at  last 
[  225  ] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

made  clear  to  her.  She  fully  understood  now  why 
she  could  never  have  been  satisfied  as  a  governess, 
private  tutor,  or  writer  of  books  even,  and  she  doubly 
blessed  Fate  for  granting  her  those  conditions  of 
inner  peace  that  have  so  little  to  do  with  our  own 
moral  good  will.  With  feeling  Fraulein  Wenckebach 
quoted  occasionally: 
ft  Vorjedem  steht  ein  Bild  des  was  er  werden  soil, 
So  lang  er  das  nicht  hat,  ist  nicht  sein  Friede  voll.'* 


[226] 


XXX 

**  M^ VERY  teacher,  every  educator,"  Fraulein 
1  J  Wenckebach  once  said,  "should  above  all 
be  a  guide.  Not  one  of  those  who,  like  signposts, 
stretch  their  wooden  arms  with  pedantic  insistence 
in  a  given  direction,  but  one,  rather,  who,  after  the 
manner  of  the  heavenly  bodies,  diffusing  warmth 
and  light  and  cheer,  draws  the  young  soul  in-esist- 
ibly  to  leave  its  dark  jungles  of  prejudice  and  igno- 
rance for  the  promised  land  of  wisdom  and  freedom." 
She  herself  surely  practiced  what  she  preached. 

"To  Fraulein  Wenckebach  as  a  teacher,"  one  of 
her  student  friends  wrote,  "I  owe  more  than  to  any 
other  teacher  I  have  ever  had.  I  cannot  remember 
that  she  reproved  any  student  or  that  she  ever  di- 
rectly urged  us  to  do  our  best.  She  made  no  efforts 
to  make  her  lectures  attractive  by  witticisms,  an- 
ecdotes, or  entertaining  illustrations.  Yet  her  stu- 
dents worked  with  eager  faithfulness,  and  I,  per- 
sonally, have  never  been  so  absorbed  and  inspired 
by  any  lectures  as  by  hers.  The  secret  of  her  power 
was  not  merely  that  she  was  master  of  the  art  of 
teaching  and  knew  how  to  arouse  interest  and 
awaken  the  mind  to  independent  thought  and  in- 
quiry, but  that  her  own  earnestness  and  high  pur- 
[  227  ] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

pose  touched  our  lives  and  made  anything  less 
than  the  highest  possible  degree  of  effort  and  at- 
tainment seem  not  worth  while. 

"She  always  came  into  class  as  if  she  was  glad 
to  see  us  again,  and  she  never  left  us  without  hav- 
ing said  something  to  make  one  think.  I  have  had 
light  on  many  problems  in  life  from  her  words. 

"She  commanded  herself,  her  work,  her  students. 
We  girls  used  to  say  to  each  other  that  if  we  ever 
taught  we  should  want  to  be  to  our  students  what 
she  was  to  us,  and  if  they  could  feel  as  we  felt 
toward  her  and  her  work  we  should  want  no  more. 
She  demanded  the  best  of  us,  without  demanding, 
and  what  she  gave  us  was  beyond  measure.  Every 
atom  of  that  sturdy  little  body,  every  flash  from 
those  wonderful,  glancing  eyes,  that  rested  no  mo- 
ment on  any  face  and  yet  seemed  continually  to 
include  each  of  us,  every  tone  of  that  ringing,  com- 
pelling voice,  was  instinct  with  a  genius  that  lifted 
instruction  into  teaching,  and  teaching  to  inspira- 
tion. It  was  courses  like  hers  that  made  us  feel 
that  college  work  was  the  best  part  of  college  life. 
*Take  German,'  we  used  to  say  to  the  under-class 
girls,  *  because  you  will  get  so  much  out  of  it.' 
We  felt  tremendous  personal  pride  and  pleasure  in 
the  department,  it  was  so  real  and  alive,  so  rich, 
[  228  ] 


THE  AMERICAN 

and  so  full  of  enlarged  thought,  suggestion,  and 
resource  for  us.  To  any  one  in  the  world  we  could 
point  it  out  and  say,  'This  is  unexcelled.  For  here 
is  work  which  bears  its  own  stamp  of  excellence 
past  the  comparative.'" 

These  testimonies  of  students  may  suffice  to  show 
what  "mere  teaching"  in  Fraulein  Wenckebach's 
case  meant  to  those  whom  she  taught.  And  what  a 
revelation  her  class-room  work  meant  to  many  of 
her  colleagues  even!  When  I  visited  her  classes 
for  the  first  time  I  was  struck  not  only  by  the  glad 
earnestness  of  her  manner,  the  ingenuous  simplic- 
ity of  her  teaching,  but  also  by  her  truly  wonder- 
ful capacity  for  adapting  her  work  to  her  audience. 
I  heard  her  teach  the  same  subject  in  two  sections, 
and  was  astonished  to  see  how  ingeniously  she 
varied  the  treatment  so  as  to  suit  the  different 
needs.  "She  does  not  understand  the  art  of  feeling 
herself  into  her  classes"  (skh  in  ihre  Klassen  ein- 
zitfuhlen),  was  one  of  the  most  serious  criticisms 
that  Fraulein  Wenckebach  could  pronounce  upon 
a  colleague.  That  she  herself  never  taught  from  a 
pedestal,  as  it  were,  seems  the  more  wonderfal  be- 
cause of  her  marked  oratorical  gifts.  These  might 
easily  have  beguiled  her  into  losing  herself  and  her 
listeners  in  a  high  flood  of  words.  I  am  not  sure 
[  229  ] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

that  during  the  first  years  at  Wellesley  her  fond- 
ness for  lecturing  did  not  occasionally  get  the 
better  of  her.  For  the  good  of  her  dear  classes,  how- 
ever, she  effectively  disciplined  herself  very  soon 
into  applying  the  more  difficult  but  also  more  edu- 
cative Socratic  methods.  Marvelous,  too,  was  the 
lucidity,  the  graphic  plasticity,  of  her  presentation 
of  involved  philosophical  and  mystical  problems. 
A  philosopher  of  pure  breed,  to  be  sure,  might 
have  argued  that  her  comparisons  and  illustrations 
from  the  life  about  her,  that  her  drawings  of 
geometrical  figures  on  the  blackboard,  could  only 
check  deeper  philosophical  thought;  but  even  such 
critics  would  have  acknowledged  that,  however 
much  she  might  appear  to  "weigh  down  mind  by 
matter,"  she  at  least  irresistibly  touched  the  springs 
of  practical  ethics  in  her  pupils,  and  forcibly  ap- 
pealed to  their  spiritual  nature.  Yet  it  must  not 
be  supposed  that  she  ever  sermonized,  or  that  she 
talked  down  to  her  students.  Focusing  all  the  rich 
resources  of  her  nature,  all  the  light  she  could  get 
from  her  wide  field  of  reading,  on  the  work  she 
loved,  she  approached  her  task  of  teaching  in  the 
manner  of  a  generous  host  who  gladly  sees  his 
guests  partake  of  the  good  gifts  wherewith  kind 
Providence  has  blessed  his  table.  The  gifts  that 
[  230  ] 


THE  AMERICAN 

Fraulein  Wenckebach  asked  her  students  to  share 
with  her  at  their  pleasure  were  generally  not  her 
own  "original"  thoughts, — for  she  was  not,  nor  did 
she  ever  claim  to  be,  an  original  thinker, — but  they 
were  the  seeds  of  intellectual  joy  and  growth  which 
she  had  gathered  from  the  works  of  the  great  of  all 
times.  Fraulein  Wenckebach's  mind  to  a  very  large 
extent  fed  on  books ;  nevertheless,  in  her  classes  she 
hardly  ever  made  bookish  allusions.  In  books  as  such 
she  had  no  interest,  nor  did  she  care  particularly 
for  the  personalities  of  their  writers.  What  she  most 
wanted  for  herself  and  her  work  were  ideas, — ideas 
that  would  help  her  to  get  light  and  to  throw  light 
on  the  problems  of  the  great  and  glorious  world ; 
systems  of  thought  by  which,  intellectually,  the 
fragmentariness  of  our  existence  could  be  removed 
and  the  *' isolated  one  be  called  to  universal  conse- 
cration." Plato,  Boehme,  Goethe,  Hegel,  appealed  to 
her  through  their  ideas  rather  than  through  what 
they  personally  represented;  Schiller  and  Lessing 
for  the  same  reason  were  greater  favorites  with  her 
than  Goethe  and  Shakespeare. 

This  tendency  of  her  nature  may  explain  why 
she  preferred  to  teach  subjects   that  require   an 
ideahstic  treatment  rather  than  those  which  pre- 
suppose a  fine  relish  of  individuality;  why  she  did 
[  231   ] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

not  do  her  best  work  in  connection  with  Goethe 
and  the  more  modern  writers,  for  instance,  but 
excelled  more  in  the  Lessing  coui-se,  the  historical 
and  theoretical  courses,  and  above  all  in  her  course 
on  Germanic  Mythology.  The  latter  she  created 
for  herself,  as  it  were;  it  was  her  spiritual  home, 
the  happy  hunting  ground  of  her  own  primitive 
"heroic"  instincts,  the  congenial  abiding  place  of 
her  own  mythologizing  fancies  and  feelings. 

How  deliciously  young  she  was  in  this  enthusi- 
astic partiality  of  hers  for  the  world  of  unrealities, 
and  how  the  young  student  body  worshiped  her 
for  her  sunny  idealism  1  When  a  teacher  has  suc- 
ceeded in  winning  the  hearts  of  her  pupils,  she 
gets  double  credit  for  aU  she  does.  Fraulein  Wencke- 
bach was  no  exception  to  this.  Her  students  not 
only  revered  the  great  teacher  in  her,  but,  in  spite 
of  extensive  lists  of  references  for  collateral  reading 
which  she  provided  for  her  classes,  naively  believed 
that  all  the  wisdom  of  the  ages  had  been  originated 
by  spontaneous  generation  in  that  squarish  head 
of  their  admired  professor  of  German. 

It  was  not  the  least  of  the  bits  of  good  fortune 

strewn   in   her   way  that  she  happened  to  be  in 

Wellesley  just  at  the  time  when  her  genius  was 

bound  to  be  appreciated.  Had  she  come  to  the 

[  232  ] 


THE  AMERICAN 

college  some  twenty  years  later,  when  all  the  col- 
lateral departments  had  been  so  much  more  de- 
veloped, she  might  not  have  awakened  the  same 
glowing  and  undivided  admiration. 

This  general  and  generous  enthusiasm  that 
Fraulein  Wenckebach  aroused  among  her  students 
was  singularly  free  from  the  hysteria  which,  in  the 
cloistered  women's  colleges,  often  pollutes  the  Par- 
nassus-born springs  of  hero  worship.  Self-centered 
sentimentality  seemed  to  sneak  away,  as  it  were, 
before  her  impersonal  soul, — before  the  all-embrac- 
ing impartiality  of  her  mind  and  the  universal  cor- 
diality of  her  manner.  Although  in  her  classes  she 
at  times  dropped  her  natural  reserve,  she  so  tuned 
the  separateness  of  her  individual  experience  into 
harmony  with  the  universal,  that  no  one  but  an 
intimate  friend  could  have  detected  the  personal 
note  in  the  voice  of  common  humanity  that  seemed 
to  speak  through  her. 

Truly,  as  a  teacher,  especially  a  teacher  of  youth, 
Fraulein  Wenckebach  was  unexcelled.  There  was 
that  relieving  and  inspiring,  that  broadening  and 
yet  deepening  quality  in  her  work,  that  ease  and 
grace  and  joy,  that  mark  the  work  of  the  elect 
only, — of  those  rare  souls  among  us  who  are  "  near 
the  shaping  hand  of  the  Creator." 
[  233  ] 


XXXI 

WHILE  the  free  exercise  of  her  rich  powers 
as  a  teacher  and  the  rare  opportunities  for 
intellectual  growth  thus  raised  the  tenor  of  Fraulein 
Wenckebach's  existence  to  a  pitch  such  as  it  had 
never  before  attained,  there  also  came  to  her  that 
which  in  late  years  she  had  longed  for  as  the  crown- 
ing glory  of  all  earthly  life, — the  close  communion 
with  a  present  friend.  "The  older  and  more  un- 
married one  gets  to  be,  the  more  ardently  one  longs 
for  a  heart-to-heart  daily  intercourse  with  one,  or 
maybe  two  sympathetic  souls,"  she  wrote  in  1884!. 
This  craving  for  personal  intimacy  was  a  rather  re- 
cent development  of  Fraulein  Wenckebach's  some- 
what self-sufficient  spirit.  While  a  girl  at  school 
she  had  cultivated  plenty  of  friendships  SLndSchwdr- 
mereien,  but  all  had  failed  in  some  way  to  touch 
the  vital  springs  of  her  being.  Afterwards  during 
her  wanderings,  there  had  been  no  time  or  leisure 
to  develop  intimate  personal  relations.  It  was  nat- 
ural, therefore,  that  she  considered  close  friend- 
ships luxuries  rather  than  necessities  of  life.  Her 
most  deep-rooted  affections  so  far  had  clung  round 
her  family,  all  the  members  of  which  she  embraced 
alike  with  primitive,  if  undemonstrative,  ardor.  This 
[  234  ] 


THE  AMERICAN 

fact  may  need  some  retrospective  elaboration  here, 
because  in  the  course  of  her  life  traced  so  far  a  deep 
devotion  to  her  family  has  not  been  apparent.  On 
the  contrary,  it  is  evident  that  she  hardly  ever  made 
efforts  to  stay  with  her  kin  for  any  length  of  time, 
and  that  she  had  not  shown  herself  over-anxious  to 
commune  with  them  through  letters.  To  be  sure,  she 
never  was  a  good  correspondent,  and  what  letter 
writing  she  did  she  directed  almost  exclusively 
to  her  family;  but  these  few  home  letters  recount 
the  events  of  her  outer  life  mainly,  and  rarely — 
one  might  say  never — touch  on  things  that  were 
nearest  the  writer's  heart.  The  event  that  seems  to 
have  made  her  conscious  for  the  first  time  of  the 
deep  undercurrent  of  family  affection  in  her  nature 
was  the  death  of  a  younger  sister,  a  sweet  girl  of 
eighteen,  which  occun*ed  in  1880,  the  first  death  in 
her  immediate  family  since  that  of  her  twin.  The 
news  of  it  so  completely  stunned  her  that  she  was 
thrown  into  a  lethargy  which  she  could  not  shake 
off  without  a  mighty  effort  of  will. 

It  was  at  this  time  that  very  intimate  personal 
relations  developed  between  Fraulein  Wenckebach 
and  her  sister  Helene,  then  twenty-one  years  old. 
The  latter,  an  unselfish,  ardent  spirit,  was  at  home 
teaching  an  elder  sister  whose  education  had  been 
[  235  ] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

neglected,  and  preparing  Eberhard,  a  winning  and 
gifted  boy  of  nine,  to  enter  an  advanced  class  in  some 
German  Gymnasium.  Around  the  development  of 
this  boy  the  thoughts  of  the  two  pedagogic  sisters 
hovered  with  the  most  loving  and  eager  concern, 
Helene  asking  advice  and  Carla  giving  it  in  elab- 
orately and  carefully  worked-out  model  lessons. 
These  letters  of  Carla's  reveal  a  trait  that  had  not 
found  expression  in  her  life  so  far, — a  capacity  for 
strong  motherly,  or  one  might  rather  say  fatherly, 
affection,  with  a  keen  insight  into  the  individual 
needs  of  the  beloved  object.  They  also  show  that 
Carla,  when  she  once  overcame  her  habitual  resei've 
and  caution,  could  be  the  most  confiding  of  friends. 
The  great  secret  that  she  let  out  at  once  is  that 
of  her  literary  ambitions.  We  hear  her  complain  of 
Fate  that  "gives  to  writers  less  chance  than  it  affords 
to  shoemakers  of  learning  their  trade."  Hungry 
for  criticism  and  intelligent  appreciation,  she  now 
sent  all  her  carefully  hidden  manuscripts  to  the 
younger  sister,  in  whose  literary  taste  she  apparently 
had  more  confidence  than  in  her  own;  and  with 
gi'atitude — yes,  with  humility,  even — she  accepted 
the  somewhat  immature  verdicts  offered. 

When  Wellesley  had  turned  Carla's  energies  in 
the  direction  of  academic  interests,  it  was  Helene 
[  236  ] 


THE  AMERICAN 

again  to  whom  she  confided  the  discouragements 
arising  from  her  "ignorance,"  and  to  whom  she 
turned  for  help.  And  Helene,  with  Wellesley  dawn- 
ing on  her  own  horizon,  went  to  Berlin  to  assist 
her  adored  Carla  by  studying  Gothic  and  the  old 
German  dialects.  In  elaborate  weekly  letters  she  im- 
parted to  the  elder  sister  what  she  learned  from  her 
Privatdozent.  Soon  the  plan  of  the  Leselmch  fur 
Amerikaner  and  of  the  Lkderhiwh  was  taken  up 
by  the  sisters,  and  Helene  untiringly  helped  collect 
material  for  both  books.  At  the  suggestion  of  Carla, 
she  also  took  lessons  in  elocution  of  an  actor  to 
perfect  her  marked  talent  for  interpreting  poetry, 
and  she  attended  lecture  courses  at  the  Victoria 
Lyceum,  where  crumbs  of  university  learning  were 
lately  being  distributed  to  an  eager  and  ever  in- 
creasing crowd  of  women.  Carla,  to  her  bitter  sor- 
row in  after  years,  never  realized  of  course  that  she 
was  over-stimulating  this  precious  friend  and  co- 
worker of  hers,  who  was  not  only  frail  of  body,  but 
was  also  prone  to  waste  herself  for  other  people. 
The  dear,  delicate  woman  was  trying  to  do  what 
she  had  seen  robust  Carla  do  so  successfully, — fill 
a  paying  position  to  cover  expenses,  and  attend  to 
her  "higher  education"  during  her  leisure  hours, 
which,  since  she  took  complete  and  devoted  care  of 
[  237  ] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

a  half-witted  child,  were  crowded  into  the  evenings. 
Fortunately  the  child  was  removed  from  Berlin  be- 
fore Helene  had  quite  used  up  her  strength.  Carla 
was  then  appealed  to  for  help,  and  wrote  by  return 
mail  that  she  would  give  up  her  summer  trip  to 
Germany  to  provide  the  funds  for  her  sister's  con- 
tinued study.  Helene's  answer  is  telling:  "Never, 
never  should  I  be  willing  to  accept  such  a  sacrifice! 
. . .  And  just  think  what  deprivation  it  would  be  for 
all  of  us  not  to  have  you  with  us  this  year.  If  you 
could  see  our  father's  eyes  fairly  dancing  in  his 
head  whenever  your  prospective  visit  is  mentioned, 
you  would  not  propose  such  an  impossible  thing!" 

It  was  at  about  this  time  that  Carla  fright- 
ened her  shy  sister  by  the  announcement  that  a 
Wellesley  professor  who  happened  to  be  studying 
in  Berlin  was  to  call  on  her  in  a  semi-official  way. 
"  I  have  praised  you  very  highly,  as  you  deserve," 
Carla  wrote;  "now  don't,  for  Heaven's  sake,  let 
your  Grerman  modesty  and  timidity  spoil  your  fine 
American  chances.  Don't  ever  protest  that  you 
can't  do  this  or  that,  but  always  say,  'All  right, 
IwiUdoit!'" 

And  Helene  seems  to  have  followed  her  sister's 
sound  business  advice,  for  not  long  after  this  she  was 
appointed  to  an  instructorship  at  Wellesley  College. 
[  2S8  ] 


THE  AMERICAN 

That  summer  (1885)  must  have  been  a  memo- 
rable one  for  the  reunited  Wenckebach  household: 
Carla  back,  beaming  with  happiness  and  radiating 
strength;  Helene  getting  stronger  physically  at  the 
prospect  of  working  at  the  side  of  her  heroine; 
Claus  engaged  to  be  married  to  a  well  liked 
cousin  (the  East  Frisians  are  apt  to  marry  cousins) 
and  ready  to  reform  his  "elegant  wastefulness;" 
timid  Louise  all  radiant  joy  inside  over  Carla''s 
and  Helene's  promise  to  provide  the  means  for  her 
musical  education;  Emilie,  the  melancholy  twin, 
coming  back  to  a  glad  existence  again;  Mariechen 
blooming  out  into  a  proud  young  beauty;  Eber- 
hard  winning  honors  at  his  school;  Caroline,  the 
golden-hearted  and  strong,  a  second  Frau  Marie; 
and  lastly  the  Frau  Postmeister  herself,  serenely 
bent  on  making  life  comfortable  for  her  idolized 
family.  The  only  shadow  on  the  general  happiness 
was  the  aged  father's  failing  health,  and  the  dim 
outlook  into  a  future  which  showed  Frau  Marie 
scantily  provided  for,  four  sisters  unable  to  support 
themselves  "  decently ,"and  Eberhard  thrown  on  the 
mercy  of  uncongenial  relatives.  Unselfish  Helene's 
first  thought  on  getting  the  instructorship  at 
Wellesley  had  been:  "Thank  God,  I  shall  be  able 
now  to  save  my  sisters  from  having  to  do  menial 
[  239  ] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

service."  Carla,  by  some  mysterious  inner  prompt- 
ing, at  which  she  wondered  afterwards,  was  led  to 
do  what,  with  her  dislike  to  interfere,  would  seem 
to  have  been  most  foreign  to  her, — she  urged  her 
father  that  summer  to  make  a  will  by  which  the 
eldest  son  was  enjoined,  after  coming  into  the  family 
estate,  to  pay  back  to  his  mother  in  yearly  install- 
ments the  fortune  he  had  used  up  in  his  fourteen 
years  of  law  study. 

In  taking  leave  of  their  dear  family  that  year,  the 
two  "American"*'  sisters  promised  each  other  that 
they  would  ever  faithfully  look  out  for  the  comfort 
of  mother  and  sisters.  Carla  could  keep  her  word. 
Although  not  of  a  saving  disposition,  she  managed 
to  pay  larger  or  smaller  sums  every  year  into  the 
family  treasury.  Louise  wanted  better  musical  in- 
struction and  a  good  piano, — Carla  paid  for  both; 
Emilie  needed  a  "cure""  in  the  mountains  every  sum- 
mer,— Carla  furnished  the  means;  Mariechen  must 
have  money  for  clothes  over  and  above  the  yearly 
allowance  of  thirty-five  dollai-s  that  Frau  Marie 
could  give  to  each  of  the  sisters, — Carla  provided 
her  with  it.  Later  on,  when  she  saw  that  her  costly 
"viking*"  instincts  for  roaming  and  her  weakness 
for  buying  and  cutting  up  costly  books  would  al- 
ways be  in  the  way  of  her  laying  by  money,  she 
[  240  ] 


THE  AMERICAN 

forced  herself  to  greater  economy  by  taking  out 
a  very  high  life-insurance  policy,  so  shielding  the 
future  of  her  loved  ones  once  and  for  all. 

The  preceding  may  have  made  it  clear  why  the 
presence  at  Wellesley  of  Helene — disciple,  friend, 
co-worker,  sister — was  such  a  powerful  agent  in 
increasing  Fraulein  Wenckebach's  natural  vitality 
and  joy  of  living  to  the  climactic  pitch  that  it  at- 
tained during  the  next  few  years, — years  that  were 
marvelous  for  what  she  accomplished  in  the  way 
of  learning  and  studying,  of  teaching  and  writing. 


[  241  ] 


XXXII 

IN  spite  of  the  richness  and  fullness  of  experience 
which  congenial  work  and  close  companionship 
with  a  kindi-ed  spirit  yielded,  life  for  Fraulein 
Wenckebach  would  have  somewhat  lacked  its  Olym- 
pian flavor  if  high  romance,  with  its  appeal  to  the 
imagination  and  its  call  for  idealization,  had  not  also 
entered  in.  This  golden  draught  she  was  to  enjoy  in 
her  worshipful  admiration  of  Miss  Freeman,  whose 
large  and  magnetic  personality,  whose  charm  and 
warmth  of  manner,  had  fascinated  her  from  the  day 
of  the  Amherst  trial.  It  was  one  of  the  old  fits  of 
hero  worship  that  had  got  hold  of  her  once  more, 
but  with  an  unprecedented  intensity  this  time.  Miss 
Freeman,  whom  Fraulein  Wenckebach,  with  an  af- 
fectionate relish,  called  a  ^^Teufelchen  von  einem 
Seelenschlecker^^  and  of  whom  she  said  that  she 
could  never  resist  the  temptation  of  supporting  even 
the  slenderest  tendril  of  love  that  was  reaching  out 
for  her,  instinctively  stooped  to  conquer,  and  to- 
gether these  genial  spirits  rose  to  the  heights  of 
ideal  friendship. 

"You  have  given  me  a  strong,  sweet  name," 
Miss  Freeman  wrote  in  November,   1884,  refer- 
ring to  "  Alruna"  in  one  of  Fraulein  Wenckebach's 
[  242  ] 


(3^  ^. 


e^ic 


THE  AMERICAN 

notes;  "a  name  which  has  an  echo  of  heroic  days 
in  its  musical  syllables.  You  are  ideal  in  your 
fiiendships,  Fraulein;  and  I — because  you  gave  me 
once  the  great  name — perhaps  I  may  grow  more 
like  the  one  who  must  have  first  been  crowned  by 
it.  We  will  hope  so.  We  will  all  help  each  other, 
will  we  not?"  And  Fraulein  Wenckebach  followed 
but  too  gladly  wherever  Miss  Freeman  called  her, 
— whether  the  latter  stimulated  her  to  highest  ef- 
fort in  her  classes,  at  which  the  president  appeared 
not  unfrequently,  and  which  she  proudly  urged 
guests  of  the  college  to  visit;  or  whether  she  lured 
her  to  receptions  and  prayer  ineetings,  for  both  of 
which  Fraulein  Wenckebach  felt  a  natural  aversion. 
The  free  display  of  religious  feeling  at  the  prayer 
meetings  is  generally  rather  shocking  to  Germans. 
"How  could  you  go  to  them?"  an  astonished  friend 
asked  Fraulein  Wenckebach  on  hearing  that  once 
upon  a  time  she  had  frequented  them  regularly. 
"Oh,"  she  answered  somewhat  apologetically,  "it 
was  such  fun  to  hear  Alice  chat  with  the  Lord!" 
And  then  she  added  that  Miss  Freeman  had  so 
graceful  a  way  of  veiling  the  armor  of  religious 
conviction  that  she  never  once  associated  her,  not 
even  in  prayer  meetings,  with  the  hated  spirit  of 
aggressive  Christianity. 

[  243  ] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

The  passionate  exultation  with  which  Fraulein 
Wenckebach  at  first  met  Miss  Freeman's  advances, 
"wise  Alice*"  gradually  succeeded  in  toning  down 
to  the  true  and  steady  ring  of  sisterly  affection. 
Each  introduced  the  other  to  the  sanctuary  of  her 
life, — her  family.  Mrs.  Freeman  is  prompted  to 
send  Alice's  juvenile  pictures  to  say  a  "Happy 
New  Year"  to  the  friend,  and  Mr.  Freeman  makes 
his  daughter  write  to  her  "little  squirrel"  that  he 
"loves  her  for  being  so  good  to  his  little  girl."  In 
December,  1885,  Frau  Marie  is  told  that  Miss 
Freeman  will  accompany  her  daughter  to  visit  Up- 
gant  the  next  June.  "I  know,"  Fraulein  Wencke- 
bach writes,  "how  much  you  dislike  having  stran- 
gers in  the  house,  but  I  am  sure  you  will  gladly  wel- 
come Miss  Freeman,  who  in  private  life  is  like  M., 
— a  happy,  childlike  nature.  She  takes  a  naive 
pleasure  in  little  things,  and  makes  no  pretensions 
whatever.  She  will  rejoice  in  our  garden,  with  its 
blueberries,  its  black-,  rasp-,  straw-,  goose-,  and 
mulberries,  in  the  storks,  the  chickens,  and  the  kit- 
tens. Please  have  the  large  guest  room  ready  for  her, 
and  see  that  she  has  a  great  deal  of  quiet,  for  she 
needs  rest."  It  is  clear  that  Fraulein  Wenckebach 
had  not,  by  this  time,  learned  the  American  trick 
of  mind-changing,  or  she  would  not  have  been  so 
[  244  ] 


THE  AMERICAN 

sure  in  December  that  Miss  Freeman  would  actu- 
ally visit  Upgant  the  next  summer.*  I  do  not  know 
what  prevented  Miss  Freeman  from  keeping  her 
promise,  but  I  am  sure  that  it  was  not  a  change  of 
mind  about  the  new  friend. 

"One  of  the  most  characteristic  traits  of  Miss 
Freeman,"  Fraulein  Wenckebach  assured  me  once, 
in  answer  to  my  question  whether  the  young  presi- 
dent was  rightly  criticised  for  vanity  and  insin- 
cerity, "is  the  great  simplicity  and  loyalty  of  her 
nature.  Her  big  heart,  to  be  sure,  yields  itself  easily 
— too  easily  maybe — to  new  claims,  but  that  is 
only  the  shadow  of  the  great  light  in  her,  which 
light,  after  all,  is  steady  and  pure  in  its  essence. 
In  her  overcrowded  life  of  administrator,  lecturer, 
housekeeper,  mother  confessor,  and  what  not,  she 
lacks  time  to  cultivate  old  friendships,  but  the  love 
she  once  bore  you  always  wells  up  afresh  when  you 
approach  her  either  by  letter  or  in  person.  Why 
do  people  insist,"  Miss  Freeman's  stanchest  friend 
would  exclaim  impatiently,  "on  demanding  of  her 
what  by  the  very  excellence  of  her  nature  she  is 
prevented  from  giving!  Why  can  they  not  accept 

♦Gradually  Fraulein  Wenckebach  herself  acquired  the  trick  so  thor- 
oughly that  even  Frau  Marie,  whose  vocabulary  did  not  contain  an 
adequate  expression  for  this  foreign  mental  process,  adopted  the 
phrase,  adapting  it  to  the  German  for  frequent  usage  by  saying :  "Sie 
hat  ihr  mind  gechanged." 

[  245  ] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

her  joyfully  as  she  is,  instead  of  bickering  over  what 
she  ought  to  be!" 

Fraulein  Wenckebach,  surely,  except  for  one 
crime  that  Miss  Freeman  was  soon  to  commit  in 
the  eyes  of  her  devotees,  accepted  her  friend  as  she 
was,  counting  her  faults  but  virtues.  "I  am  made 
happy,  oh,  so  inexpressibly  happy,"  she  confided  to 
her  sister,  "by  the  close  ties  of  friendship  that  have 
formed  between  myself  and  our  charming  presi- 
dent. She  is  two  years  younger  than  I  am,  has  a 
classical  education,  is  inspired  by  noble  ideals  for 
the  education  of  women,  and  has  at  the  same  time 
a  great  deal  of  practical  ability.  She  is  bom  to 
govern  a  kingdom  by  the  motion  of  her  little  fin- 
ger, and  nevertheless  she  is  most  touchingly  unself- 
ish and  simple.  I  look  upon  the  world  differently 
since  I  have  looked  into  this  golden  heart  filled  with 
human  love,  and  into  these  eyes  which  bear  the 
insignia  of  genius.  There  is  something  wonderfully 
inspiring  about  an  ideal  friendship  with  a  great 
human  being."  It  sounds  almost  like  an  answer  to 
this  when  we  read  Miss  Fi-eeman's  words  on  a  little 
card  she  sent  Fraulein  Wenckebach,  showing  a  de- 
sign of  clasped  hands  surrounded  by  a  wreath  of 
roses:  "When  a  man  loves  a  woman,  it  is  of  nature; 
when  a  woman  loves  a  woman,  it  is  of  grace, — 
[  246  ] 


THE  AMERICAN 

of  the  grace  that  woman  makes  by  her  loveliness 
and  loving-kindness.  'Love  understands  love, — it 
needs  no  talkf  and  so  I  say  only,  God  be  with 
thee!" 

No  wonder  that  with  this  gift  of  romantic  friend- 
ship coming  to  her  on  top  of  all  the  other  bless- 
ings, Fraulein  Wenckebach  exclaimed:  "I  know 
such  happiness  cannot  last,  and  I  am  beginning  to 
be  afraid  of  the  envy  of  the  gods !" 

And  the  gods,  to  be  sure,  did  send  the  trials  as 
fast  as  the  blessings  had  come.  The  first  great  sor- 
row that  came  to  Fraulein  Wenckebach  and  her  sis- 
ter was  the  death  of  their  father,  the  news  of  which 
was  received  on  the  very  day  on  which  Carla  had 
exultingly  announced  Miss  Freeman's  prospective 
visit  to  Upgant.  This  was  a  harder  blow  for  Carla, 
perhaps,  than  for  any  of  the  other  Wenckebachs, 
Frau  Marie  not  excepted,  for  she  and  her  father 
had  always  stood  a  little  apart  by  themselves.  "Miss 
Freeman's  exquisite  tenderness  has  enveloped  us 
during  these  sad  days,*"  Fraulein  Wenckebach  wrote 
home,  "and  has  brought  us  sweet  comfort." 

Yet  the  comforter  herself  prepared  a  great  grief 
for  her  friend,  who  was  beginning  to  have  forebod- 
ings that  a  husband  would  sooner  or  later  push  her 
and  Wellesley  into  a  comer.  Miss  Freeman  seems 
[  247  ] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

to  have  realized  the  heartache  that  she  was  going 
to  cause  Carla,  for  in  the  early  summer  of  1887  she 
wrote:  "I  ought  to  go  right  away  and  take  a  rest, 
but  perhaps  I  can  do  better,  and  of  that  I  am 
going  to  write  you  to-day.  So  go  away  by  yourself 
to  read  my  next  page.  I  wish  I  could  take  you  in 
my  arms  and  comfort  you,  sweetheart,  as  I  talk, 
for  you  will  be  very  sorry,  I  know — possibly  very 
angry  too;  but  sometime  you  will  know  that  I 
am  doing  the  best  thing  I  can  possibly  do.  For 
I  am  going  to  marry — sometime,  and  Professor 
Palmer.  Yes,  dear,  I  know  you  think  I  ought  not 
to  leave  the  college ;  you  are  terribly  grieved.  You 
asked  me  once,  but  then  we  were  not  engaged.  As 
soon  as  I  can,  I  tell  ycni^  who  are  and  always  will 
be  dear  to  me.  Yes,  you  wiU  be  more  dear,  not  less, 
and  I  think  you  will  be  glad  to  have  me  take  a 
larger,  quieter  life  than  I  could  otherwise  have,  and 
a  happier,  wiser  one.  When  you  come  we  will  talk 
of  it,  and  you  will  see  what  I  see,  because  I  know 
without  doubting  that  we  do  love  each  other.  You 
will  find  a  place  for  him  in  your  heart  when  you 
know  him,  and  may  that  be  soon !  Let  us  have  the 
best  year  the  college  ever  had  next  year.  Write  and 
tell  me  that  you  love      Your  little  Wolf." 

Fraulein  Wenckebach  could  easily  comply  with 
[  248  ] 


THE  AMERICAN 

the  last  wish,  but  she  could  not  for  a  long  time 
pardon  the  "robber."  Yes,  she  was  so  sure  that 
her  beloved  Alruna  herself  would  be  unhappy,  not 
only  with  any  man  in  general,  but  with  this  one 
in  particular,  that  she  besought  Miss  Freeman  on 
the  evening  before  her  wedding  (which  took  place 
December  23, 1887)  to  think  the  matter  over  once 
more  and  to  break  the  engagement  if  possible. 
That  wedding  day  was  a  stormy  one  for  Fraulein 
Wenckebach,  and  the  symbol  of  all  her  crushed 
hopes  was  the  handsome  blue  silk  bonnet  that  Miss 
Freeman  had  prevailed  on  her  to  buy  for  the  cere- 
mony, which  the  wind  blew  into  the  street  mud 
of  Boston  and  under  a  carriage  wheel.  With  an- 
gry satisfaction  Fraulein  Wenckebach  clapped  the 
sorry-looking  thing  on  her  head,  and  muttering  a 
grim  "aSV?,  das  ware  abgemacht,^^  she  marched  away 
from  the  crowd  of  amused  bystanders.  It  took  her 
several  years  to  arrive  at  the  sure  conclusion  that 
"King  George,"  as  Mrs.  Palmer  proudly  called  her 
husband,  deserved  all  the  love  which  his  wife  could 
give  him.  When  Fraulein  Wenckebach  had  grown 
to  appreciate  Professor  Palmer's  fine  strength,  his 
deep  and  exquisite  feeling,  and  his  broad,  philo- 
sophical acceptance  and  appreciation  of  whatever 
iSy  she  was  as  proud  of  Mrs.  Palmer's  argument 
[  249  ] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

that  in  disposition  her  friend  and  her  husband  had 
much  in  common,  as  she  had  been  ready  at  first  to 
resent  such  a  comparison. 

How  constantly  Mrs.  Palmer's  thoughts  were 
with  her  German  friend  is  shown  by  the  long  letters 
that  she  wrote  to  her  wherever  she  went  on  her  wed- 
ding trip.  They  came  from  London  and  Lucerne, 
from  Paris  and  the  "blessed  land  of  ich  and  mich;^^ 
and  they  are  full  of  love  and  anxious  concern. 
Unfortunately  there  was  reason  for  great  anxiety, 
for  Fraulein  Wenckebach,  soon  after  Mrs.  Palmer 
had  left  her,  had  been  crushed  by  the  hardest  blow 
that  had  yet  struck  her.  In  the  early  spring  of 
1888  her  tenderly  beloved  Helene  had  died  of  con- 
sumption, and  she  herself  had  escaped  the  disease 
only  by  the  most  heroic  efforts  of  will.  She  never 
afterwards  could  bear  to  speak  about  Helene's 
death,  but  referring  to  it  in  a  letter  written  in  1890 
to  an  old  school  friend,  she  says:  "I  should  have 
answered  your  dear  letter  of  three  years  ago,  but  a 
great  affliction,  the  death  of  my  darling  sister,  who 
was  also  my  faithful,  inspiring  comrade  in  work  and 
play,  almost  paralyzed  me,  so  that  I  myself  fell 
dangerously  ill.  Now  health  and  new  pleasure  in  life 
have  returned  to  me,  but  deep  down  in  my  heart 
the  cruel  pain  keeps  on  gnawing."  A  student  friend, 
[  250  ] 


THE  AMERICAN 

who  knew  Fraulein  Wenckebach  before  and  after 
this  experience,  says : "  Her  love  for  her  sister  Helene 
seemed  to  me  the  deepest  affection  of  her  heart,  and 
I  never  thought  her  quite  the  same  after  Fraulein 
Helene  had  left  her." 


[251  ] 


XXXIII 

IT  was  about  a  year  after  Helene's  death  that  a 
young  German  woman,  who  was  to  become  the 
last  and  perhaps  the  most  intimate  friend  of  Frau- 
lein  Wenckebach,  was  urged  by  a  Wellesley  in- 
structor to  visit  the  college  and  to  present  herself 
to  the  Professor  of  German,  who  wished  to  fill 
a  vacancy  in  her  department.  In  what  follows  we 
shall  largely  quote  from  the  reminiscences  of  this 
fond  but  critical  person.  "I  had  heard  Wellesley 
criticised  (very  unjustly,  to  be  sure),"  she  begins, 
"as  a  most  bourgeois  and  bigoted  place,  but  Frau- 
lein  Wenckebach  was  described  to  me  as  a  delight- 
fully odd  and  unconventional  lady.  So  I  decided 
to  accept  the  invitation.  My  first  impression  of 
Wellesley  I  can  recall  but  dimly  at  present,  but 
I  shall  never  forget  my  amazement  at  first  behold- 
ing my  future  chief  and  bosom  friend  in  her  den. 
At  that  period  of  plain  living  and  high  thinking 
in  the  college  history,  the  professors  had  to  do  all 
their  studying,  sleeping,  and  a  large  part  of  their  ad- 
ministrative work  in  one  and  the  same  room.  I  was 
familiar  enough  with  Bohemian  quarters,  but  I 
had  never  before  seen  a  room  like  Fraulein  Wencke- 
bach's. The  furniture  I  did  not  notice  especially, 
[  252  ] 


THE  AMERICAN 

except  perhaps  a  huge  desk  over  which  towered 
rows  and  rows  of  brass-lettered  pigeonhole  frames ; 
it  was  the  color  scheme  which  left  an  indelible  im- 
pression on  my  sensorium, — the  red  portiere,  the 
off-red  desk  cover,  and  the  yellow  tint  of  the  walls ; 
the  plush  table  cover  of  peacock-blue,  with  its  bor- 
der of  green  and  gold;  the  bookcase  curtains  of 
pink  cotton ;  and,  most  startling  of  all,  the  blood -red 
carpet,  the  crying  counterpoint  in  this  mad  medley 
of  color  tones.  There  were  funny  gimcracks,  too,  of 
which  I  remember  a  shining  toy  bicycle,  and  a  brass 
cornucopia  that  showered  artificial  flowers  on  a 
china  cat;  there  were  family  photographs  in  heavy 
gilt  frames,  surrounding  a  large  reproduction  of 
SicheFs  theatrical  Medea;  and  there  were  books 
and  manuscripts  everywhere, — piled  up  in  comers 
and  spread  out  on  tables  and  chairs.  When  the 
friend  who  had  introduced  me  had  left  the  room 
and  I  had  cleared  a  seat  for  myself,  I  sat  down 
opposite  the  professor,  who  had  all  this  time  been 
majestically  enthroned  on  her  high  desk  chair,  her 
feet  supported  by  an  enormous  hassock,  her  shapely 
hands  resting  on  her  knees.  How  plainly  I  can  see 
her  there  now !  She  wore  a  red  velvet  dress  with  a 
large  flower  pattern  stamped  on  it,  and  a  juvenile 
red  sash  around  her  waist;  and  she  was  sparkling 
[  253  ] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

with  gold  or  some  kind  of  yellow  metal  that  glis- 
tened in  her  finger  rings  and  bracelets,  in  her  dress 
buttons  and  the  beads  used  for  a  niching.  With 
bewilderment  my  eyes  traveled  down  the  length 
of  her  heavy  gold  chain,  and  up  again  fi*om  her 
waist  to  the  enormous  brooch, — a  gold  dollar  sur- 
rounded by  spikes, — to  fasten  at  last  on  that  won- 
derful square  head  of  hers,  with  its  crown  of  short 
blond  hair  which  bristled  up  over  her  fine  brow 
like  the  crest  of  an  alert  bird.  I  smiled  a  supercili- 
ous smile,  I  fear,  when  this  funny  little  person  be- 
gan to  talk  to  me,  but  I  soon  forgot  her  surround- 
ings, bent  on  listening  to  her  voice.  It  was  a  voice 
like  the  one  I  had  heard  during  my  childhood  days, 
— a  voice  which  in  its  strength  and  sweetness  lent 
such  beauty  to  the  beloved  mother  tongue  that  in 
listening  to  it  I  felt  something  stir  deep  down 
within  me.  In  the  course  of  the  conversation  I  be- 
came more  and  more  conscious  that  I  was  in  the 
presence  of  a  rare  and  powerful  personality,  and 
this  impression  of  power,  associated  with  Fraulein 
Wenckebach"*s  strong  neck  and  jaw,  her  fine,  firm 
mouth,  her  determined  chin,  her  habitually  clinched 
fists,  and  her  clear,  starlike  gaze,  almost  drowns  the 
memory  of  her  musical  voice  and  of  the  gentle, 
graceful  motions  of  her  body. 
[  254  ] 


THE  AMERICAN 

"Again  I  visited  her  during  that  year,  this  time 
shortly  before  she  went  on  her  annual  summer  trip 
to  Germany.  Grief  and  unlooked-for  care  suddenly 
devolving  upon  me  had  shaken  my  health  and  cour- 
age, and  I  had  come  to  cancel  my  contract  with 
Fraulein  Wenckebach  and  the  college.  Again  the 
professor  was  in  the  chair  in  front  of  her  desk,  and 
I  before  her.  Between  sobs  I  told  my  story,  Fraulein 
Wenckebach  listening  patiently,  but  without  offer- 
ing a  single  word  of  comfort.  When  I  had  regained 
my  self-control  at  last  and  looked  up,  I  saw  the  most 
rigidly  stem  expression  on  the  professor's  face ;  and 
her  voice  sounded  hard,  I  thought,  when  she  in- 
formed me,  in  a  somewhat  husky  though  business- 
like tone,  that  she  would  try  to  interview  the  per- 
son I  had  recommended  to  take  my  place,  but  that 
I  should  have  to  keep  to  my  contract  if  that  lady 
was  not  satisfactory  or  would  not  give  up  her  posi- 
tion in  Germany.  How  I  wished  after  that  inter- 
view that  Heaven  might  keep  me  out  of  the  Ger- 
man Department  at  Wellesley !  Fortunately  it  did 
not,  and  so  I  had  the  chance  of  correcting  my  mis- 
judgment  of  Fraulein  Wenckebach's  character,  and 
to  understand  that  what  had  seemed  to  be  rigidity 
and  lack  of  sympathy  was  in  reality  the  opposite 
quality, — an  over-great  softness  of  heart  against 
[  255  ] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

which  a  reticent  nature  had  to  protect  itself  by 
putting  on  the  shield  of  coldness  and  indifference." 

Nothing  was  harder  for  Fraulein  Wenckebach 
than  a  verbal  expression  of  grief  or  of  loving  sym- 
pathy; her  natural  instinct  in  the  face  of  sorrow 
made  her  want  to  take  refuge  in  absolute  silence. 
In  this,  as  in  many  other  things,  she  changed  dur- 
ing the  latter  part  of  her  life,  but  in  her  letters  of 
comfort  to  her  family  on  the  death  of  her  father  and 
of  her  sister  this  trait  of  hers  comes  out  strongly.  She 
resorts  to  phrases  that  are  as  painfully  conventional 
and  as  commonplace  as  those  of  any  obituary  ser- 
mon or  newspaper  notice.  Nothing,  perhaps,  shows 
this  helplessness  more  pathetically  than  the  con- 
solatory presents  she  sent  from  New  York  to  the 
twin  sister, — a  picture  of  Mary,  Queen  of  Scots,  and 
the  coats  of  arms  of  the  American  states!  The 
family  of  course  never  noticed  the  slightest  incon- 
gruity in  such  gifts  of  Carla's,  and  they  received 
her  trite  expressions  of  grief  and  her  hackneyed 
words  of  comfort  in  the  same  reverent  spirit  with 
which  they  would  have  read  printed  eulogies  of 
their  dead  in  the  daily  papers. 

But  it  was  not  grief  only  that  found  her  helpless 
in  expression ;  love,  too,  made  her  appear  as  shy  as 
a  boy  and  as  awkward  as  a  puppy.  In  some  way  this 
[  256  ] 


THE  AMERICAN 

may  account  for  the  fact  that  the  friends  of  her 
heart's  choice  (there  are  not  half  a  dozen  of  these 
in  her  hfe)  have  all  been  of  the  more  demonstrative 
and  impulsive  type, — people  who  were  able  to 
take  the  initiative  in  matters  of  personal  relation. 
Although  the  friend  quoted  above  was  decidedly  of 
this  type,  Fraulein  Wenckebach  could  not,  for  some 
reason  or  other,  manage  to  get  on  terms  of  intimacy 
with  her.  In  comic  despair  she  appealed  to  a  former 
school  companion  who  happened  to  be  at  Wellesley 
that  year,  and  who  afterwards  reported  the  conver- 
sation she  had  with  Fraulein  Wenckebach  on  the 
subject.  "I  am  very  fond  of  her  and  I  want  her  for 
my  friend ;  I  think  she  likes  me,  but  there  somehow 
seems  to  be  an  obstacle  to  our  having  it  out.  How 
can  I  manage  this?"  the  professor  had  asked  ap- 
pealingly.  "Why,"  was  the  answer,  "just  tell  her 
that  you  are  fond  of  her."  "But  how  can  I,  when 
she  is  so  embarrassingly  respectful  to  me  all  the 
time.?"  "Well,  don't  say  anything,  then,  but  sim- 
ply give  her  a  hug."  "That 's  more  difficult  still  be- 
cause I  am  so  short  and  she  is  so  tall,  and  as  soon 
as  ever  I  stand  up,  she  rises  too."  ""VSHiy,  then, 
mount  your  hassock  and  do  it."  This  idea  must  have 
struck  the  little  professor  as  a  happy  one,  for — we 
quote  her  friend — "she  actually  did  mount  her  has- 
[257] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

sock  one  evening,  bent  apparently  on  measuring 
her  shortness  by  my  height.  I  thought  this  a  rather 
queer  performance,  and  the  meaning  of  it  never 
even  dawned  on  my  dense  perceptions.  At  last, 
however,  Fraulein  Wenckebach  did  manage  to 
make  me  understand  and  respond.  It  was  in  my 
room,  where  a  student  protegee  had  just  poured 
out  a  heart-rending  tale  of  sorrow  to  us.  I  sat  on 
my  couch  at  the  side  of  the  sobbing  girl,  with  my 
right  arm  around  her,  and  Fraulein  Wenckebach 
in  a  chair  opposite.  While  I  was  bending  over  the 
girl  I  suddenly  felt  something  rub  against  my  left 
shoulder.  The  professor  had  softly  slipped  over  to 
my  side  and  was  trying  to  put  her  head  under  my 
arm.  I  smiled  through  tears  and  clasped  her  tight." 
The  friendship  which  then  developed  between 
the  two  women  was  one  of  those  rare  ones  that  na- 
ture and  grace  at  times  seem  pleased  to  produce,  — 
a  thing  made  of  the  "texture  of  wine  and  dreams," 
and  at  the  same  time  fashioned  of  the  "tough  fibre 
of  the  human  heart."  Emerson,  the  bard  of  noble 
friendship,  might  have  rejoiced  at  the  truth  and 
tenderness,  at  the  simplicity  and  wholeness,  that 
distinguished  the  relation  of  these  "very  two"  who 
could  be  "very  one;"  whose  friendship  possessed 
"that  rare  mean  betwixt  likeness  and  unlikeness 
[  258  ] 


THE  AMERICAN 

that  piques  each  with  the  presence  of  power  and 
of  consent  in  the  other  party,"  and  who,  in  their 
ideals  as  well  as  in  their  common  walks  of  life,  dis- 
agreed but  to  agree. 


[  259  ] 


XXXIV 

PEOPLE  who  did  not  know  Fraulein  Wencke- 
bach well  might  have  judged  that  to  agree 
with  her  was  a  very  simple  matter,  for  she  seemed 
so  even  and  calm  of  temperament  and  so  fair  and 
sane  of  mind.  That  there  were  rocks  beneath  the 
surface  of  her  everyday  serene  manner,  and  shal- 
lows and  tangles  as  well,  only  the  initiated  were 
privileged  to  surmise.  The  truth  is  that  under  a 
flow  of  bright  non-partisan  humanity  her  person- 
ality was  considerably  hemmed  in — strong  per- 
sonality often  seems  to  have  to  pay  in  this  way  for 
its  very  strength — by  limitations  such  as  decided 
idiosyncrasies,  prejudices,  and  partialities.  There 
was,  first  of  all,  the  prejudice  of  the  East  Frisian, 
the  descendant  of  a  pure  and  proud  race,  against 
people  of  an  alleged  "impure"  stock, — people  with 
sallow  skin  and  coarse  black  hair,  for  instance.  This 
racial  feeling  of  physical  malaise  that  the  gypsy 
type  seems  to  evoke  in  the  blond  and  fair-skinned 
Frisian  was  strongly  developed  in  Fraulein  Wencke- 
bach. It  may  in  part  account  for  the  fact  that 
she  never  would  have  anybody  in  her  corps  of  in- 
structors who  was  not,  to  a  certain  degree,  person- 
ally attractive  to  her,  and  that  in  thus  seeking  for 
[  260  ] 


THE  AMERICAN 

congeniality  of  nature  she  was  sometimes  willing  to 
overlook  deficient  scholarship.  The  tribal  exclusive- 
ness  of  the  East  Frisians,  which  even  in  our  day 
makes  some  of  them  refer  to  people  outside  their 
own  narrow  borders  as  "Germans,"  never  affected 
her  in  the  least.  To  make  up  for  that,  however,  she 
had  a  pronounced  aversion  all  her  own  to  anything 
disfigured,  diseased,  or  morbid.  To  stay  in  a  sick- 
room was  torment  to  her.  Once  when  her  friend  was 
ill  with  blood  poisoning,  Fraulein  Wenckebach,  to 
be  sure,  heroically  forced  herself  to  attend  to  the 
patient's  wants,  but  she  did  it  with  sedulously 
averted  eyes  that  she  might  not  see  the  badly 
swollen  face.  The  sight  of  a  degenerate  type  of  ear- 
lobes  or  teeth  was  especially  painful  to  her,  and  she 
could  grow  quite  melancholy  over  these  defects  in 
people  whose  looks  she  otherwise  admired.  For  she 
was  exceedingly  sensitive  to  the  charm  of  physical 
beauty,  particularly  to  that  of  the  blue-eyed  and 
blond  type.  To  her  dying  day  she  cherished  this 
fondness  for  handsome  blond  humanity;  yes,  one 
of  her  very  last  wishes  was  to  have  das  kleine  Reh 
(the  little  fawn),  a  student  protegee  of  hers  and  of 
her  friend's,  sit  where  she  could  look  at  die  huhsche 
Miese  (the  pretty  pussy).  In  the  cars  or  on  the  ocean 
steamers  one  would  sometimes  see  her  nod  with 
[261] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

smiles  and  big  bright  eyes  to  some  fair  stranger, 
and  many  are  the  passing  acquaintances  formed 
through  this  her  frankly  expressed  delight  in  per- 
sonal beauty.  It  is  a  curious  fact,  however,  that  the 
same  thing  made  no  impression  on  her  when  it  had 
been  reproduced  in  art. 

Unmoral  pagan  instincts  like  those  mentioned 
above  might  easily  have  interfered  with  the  highly 
responsible  calling  of  the  teacher.  But  Friiulein 
Wenckebach''s  great  sense  of  duty  and  justice,  her 
tact,  reserve,  and  perfect  self-command,  made  it  pos- 
sible for  her  to  harbor  these  feelings  without  ever 
giving  pain  to  anybody  except  herself, — to  her 
students,  surely,  she  never  betrayed  them. 

Prejudices  on  a  somewhat  different  plane  were 
those  she  felt  against  people  with  an  affected  man- 
ner. Affectation  was  so  absolutely  foreign  to  her- 
self that  she  could  not  even  get  the  enjoyment  of 
the  ridiculous  out  of  it.  The  genre  of  the  poseur, 
however,  her  dramatic  instinct  made  her  relish 
keenly,  and  she  never  lost  a  chance  of  practicing 
her  remarkable  talent  for  inventing  nicknames  on 
this  variation  of  our  species. 

More  serious  disaffections  in  her  nature  were  those 
against  the  sententious  or  precise,  the  scholarly 
pedantic,  or  the  narrowly  pious.  These  Regelmen- 
[  262  ] 


THE  AMERICAN 

schen  (rule  men)  and  Tatsachenseelen  (fact  souls),  as 
she  called  them,  were  practically  the  only  people 
who  could  rouse  her  to  active  antagonism, — an 
emotion  she  did  not  enjoy  because  her  nature 
was  supremely  conciliatory.  She  had  little  patience, 
moreover,  with  persons  who  were  constitutional 
shirkers  of  duty.  I  shall  never  forget  the  wrath- 
ftil  indignation  she  expressed  once  on  discovering 
that  one  of  her  new  instructors,  an  "annual"  in 
consequence  of  this  discovery,  habitually  neglected 
to  prepare  herself  for  her  class  work,  and  that 
the  classes — the  sacred  classes! — suffered  from  this 
neglect. 

There  was  a  good  bit  of  naive  masterfulness  in 
Fraulein  Wenckebach,  too, — a  trait  which  came 
out  most  strongly  in  the  monarchical  ruling  of  her 
department.  From  her  childhood  up  she  had  been 
accustomed  to  see  people  follow  wherever  she  should 
lead,  and  so  she  had  quite  naturally  fallen  into 
the  habits  of  a  leader.  When  I  knew  her  first  she 
never  even  thought  of  consulting  her  teachers  about 
the  distribution  of  work  or  about  methods,  mate- 
rials, and  text-books  to  be  used.  She  herself  fur- 
nished all  the  text-books, — good  and  bad, — and 
she  took  infinite  pains  to  make  each  of  her  in- 
structors thoroughly  familiar  with  her  own  indi- 
[  263  ] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

vidual  ways  of  teaching.  Thinking  that  she  had  dis- 
covered in  the  author  a  talent  for  "development 
questions,"  she  set  her  to  work  out  minutely  a  scheme 
for  all  the  questions  and  answers  that  were  to  be 
used  in  first  and  second  year  conversation  work.  I 
had  to  write  out  the  questions  neatly  in  black  ink 
and  the  answers  in  red,  and  this  elaborate  guide 
every  instructor  in  elementary  work  was  obliged 
to  follow.  No  wonder  that  the  German  Depart- 
ment at  that  time  was  likened  to  a  body  which 
had  "one  head  and  many  hands,"  and  no  wonder, 
either,  that  "hands"  with  a  head  of  their  own  did 
not  always  enjoy  the  game,  unless  of  course  they 
were  heart  and  soul  in  sympathy  with  the  methods 
pursued. 

But  the  remarkable  thing  was  that  most  of  Frau- 
lein  Wenckebach's  co-workers  in  the  department 
never  even  dreamed  of  doing  anything  different 
from  what  their  genial  "chief"  wanted  them  to  do; 
that,  on  the  contrary,  they  gladly  put  themselves  un- 
der the  sway  of  that  unobtrusive  but  impelling  will 
of  hers.  To  be  sure,  there  was  something  almost  ir- 
resistible in  the  very  Selbstverstdndlichkeit  (matter- 
of-courseness)  that  marked  all  her  actions  and  di- 
rections, something  that  suggested  the  foundation 
laws  of  nature  herself;  and  it  took  an  unusually 
[  264  ] 


THE  AMERICAN 

independent  cast  of  thought  and  will  even  to  con- 
ceive of  opposing  what  was  felt  to  be  so  perfectly 
normal  and  natural. 


[  265  ] 


XXXV 

DESPITE  the  lingering  roughness  of  the  prim- 
itive and  pagan  in  Fraulein  Wenckebach,  the 
dominating  principles  of  her  spiritual  existence 
were  plainly  those  of  charity  and  tolerance,  of 
sympathy  and  tenderness.  Nature  had  been  kind  to 
her  in  shaping  her  mind  on  larger  outlines  than  most. 
Gifted  with  a  rare  freedom  of  soul  resulting  from 
her  lack  of  introspective  self-consciousness,  and 
blessed  with  that  objectivity  of  view  which  in  its 
very  essence  makes  for  harmony  and  peace,  she 
often  could  forbear  and  calmly  let  things  take 
their  coui*se  where  people  more  intensely  subjec- 
tive would  inevitably  resent  or  interfere.  Never  was 
there  another  person  so  unable  to  bear  malice,  or  so 
difficult  to  persuade  that  she  had  been  dealt  with 
unfairly.  A  few  incidents  may  serve  as  illustration. 
Certain  relatives  of  hers  had  invited  the  "Pro- 
fessor," on  whom  they  looked  with  approbation, 
and  her  young  sister  Marie  to  visit  them  in  M.  on 
a  return  trip  from  Paris.  The  Paris  train  was  to 
arrive  in  M.  at  four  in  the  morning,  but  the  "dear 
cousins"  were  enjoined  not  to  appear  before  half 
past  eight,  the  time  when  the  servants  would  have 
completed  their  preparations  for  the  rising  of  the 
[  ^^^  ] 


THE  AMERICAN 

household.  Now  Fraulein  Wenckebach  was  as  keenly 
sensitive  as  anybody  to  the  discomfort  of  waiting 
long  hours  in  the  smoky  and  noisy  railway  station; 
and  impatient  wonderings  as  to  why  the  tired  travel- 
ers could  not  be  allowed  to  spend  the  time  comforta- 
bly in  one  of  the  guest  rooms  of  their  hosts'  mag- 
nificent suite  did  trouble  her  mind  at  this  juncture; 
but  she  repeatedly  exposed  herself  to  the  same 
kind  of  treatment  before  she  decided  that  she  would 
not  visit  in  M.  any  more.  Angry  words,  however, 
never  passed  between  the  kinsfolk,  and  her  accounts 
of  this  inconsiderate  conduct  wei-e  calm  statements 
of  facts  rather  than  derogatory  comments.  While 
visiting  these  relatives  she  adapted  herself  with 
perfect  good  humor  to  their  "freaks,"  as  she  called 
some  of  their  vanities.  With  a  chuckle  she  told  how 
for  their  sake  she  had  to  arrive  in  M.  second  class, 
changing  from  third  just  before  reaching  her  desti- 
nation ;  and  how  with  their  covert  help  she  would 
contrive  to  depart  in  the  same  manner,  in  order  to 
avoid  hurting  the  sensibilities  of  these  would-be 
aristocrats  who  always  traveled  first  class,  and  who 
would  have  much  disliked  being  seen  to  associate 
with  a  plebeian  who  stepped  out  of  or  into  a  third- 
class  railway  compartment.  During  the  last  years 
of  her  life,  when  Fraulein  Wenckebach  herself  de- 
[267] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

veloped  some  fondness  for  the  "higher"  comforts  of 
traveling,  she  once  crossed  the  ocean  in  a  chamhre 
de  luxe  of  an  express  steamer.  Although  she  liked 
this  experience  immensely,  she  was  not  willing  to 
repeat  the  expensive  experiment,  because  this  one 
trip  had  more  than  served  its  purpose,  she  said,  in 
making  her  understand  people's  predilections  in 
that  direction.  With  Fraulein  Wenckebach,  to  un- 
derstand was  to  forgive.  Insults  directed  against 
her  own  person  she  did  not  even  need  to  under- 
stand before  she  pardoned,  because  she  forgot  them 
with  such  astonishing  ease.  Wrong  done  to  others, 
or,  sometimes,  errors  which  involved  the  serious 
discomfort  and  unhappiness  of  those  committing 
them,  affected  her  deeply,  yet  her  grief  or  indig- 
nation seldom  moved  her  to  interference.  In  her 
letters  from  New  York  she  had  repeatedly  ex- 
pressed sorrow  over  the  joyless  life  to  which  honest 
Mr.  N.  N.'s  rigid  insistence  on  pei*petual  work  con- 
demned his  children.  Asked  by  her  sister  of  aggres- 
sively altruistic  temperament  why  she  did  not  exert 
her  influence  to  improve  conditions,  she  replied: 
"A  governess  must  never  imagine  that  she  may 
govern  or  that  she  has  a  'mission'  to  fulfill;  where 
there  are  parents  she  ought  always  to  consider 
them  the  responsible  party.  It  would  be  useless, 
[  268  ] 


THE  AMERICAN 

moreover,  to  force  new  ideas  on  people  who  have 
reached  their  full  mental  development.  Common 
sense  and  the  knowledge  of  human  nature  forbid 
me  to  interfere  in  such  cases.  Just  suppose  a  gov- 
erness came  into  our  family  who  felt  it  her  sacred 
duty  to  educate  Miki  and  Eber  into  orthodox  mem- 
ber of  the  Lutheran  Church.  We  should  simply 
turn  her  and  her  sacred  duty  out  of  doors !  Herr 
N.  N.  wishes  to  make  good  work-horses  of  his  chil- 
dren ;  a  work-horse  is  his  ideal :  has  he  not  the  same 
right  to  his  ideal  that  you  have  to  yours?  Nobody 
wants  to  shatter  his  own  idols  in  order  to  replace 

them  by  those  of  other  people Interference,  you 

know,  is  not  in  my  line  anyway.  My  neighbors  see 
how  I  live ;  if  they  conclude  that  my  way  of  living 
is  superior  to  theirs  they  will  imitate  it  without 
my  having  to  preach  to  them.  To  *missionarize' 
people  who  are  not  on  or  near  your  own  stage  of 
development  generally  does  more  harm  than  good. 
. . .  You  are  different  and  must,  therefore,  go  about 
things  in  a  different  way;  and  yet,  might  you 
not  spare  yourself  some  headache  occasionally,  and 
avoid  premature  gray  hair,  by  showing  a  little  more 
trust  in  the  efficiency  of  Him  who,  after  all,  is  the 
responsible  maker  of  this  world  and  its  creatures?" 
Her  own  imperturbable  confidence  in  the  ultimate 
[269] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

lightness  and  goodness  of  things  helped,  no  doubt, 
to  give  Fraulein  Wenckebach  her  power  of  restraint, 
her  remarkable  willingness  to  wait  for  natural  re- 
sults. How  one  admires,  yes,  envies  these  quali- 
ties, but  how  relieved  one  feels  to  remember  that 
nevertheless  this  calm  sage  could  act  at  times  as 
rashly  as  any  blustering  enthusiast!  On  the  whole 
her  mind  was  toward  trusting  nonresistance  and 
quiet  adaptation,  which  may  to  some  degree  ex- 
plain the  curious  fact  noted  before,  that  in  spite 
of  her  robust  and  vigorous  personality  she  hardly 
ever  roused  antagonism. 

The  ease  and  grace  with  which  she  suited  her- 
self to  things  and  conditions  as  soon  as  their  raison 
d'etre  became  clear  to  her  is  especially  striking  in 
connection  with  her  career  at  Wellesley.  Although 
she  found  on  the  whole  that  life  in  the  College 
Beautiful  corresponded  to  her  first  enthusiastic 
conception  of  it,  it  presented  certain  aspects  which 
for  a  time  sorely  disappointed  her;  above  all  the 
fact  that  even  in  this  "stronghold  of  sound  learn- 
ing," as  she  had  called  Wellesley,  ideals  of  scholar- 
ship had  to  be  pursued  against  many  and  strange 
odds.  Young  America's  disdain  of  exact  knowledge, 
its  easy  disregard  of  accuracy,  and  its  impatient 
clamoring  for  palpable  results  caused  some  per- 
[  270  ] 


THE  AMERICAN 

plexed  surprise  to  one  who  by  temperament  was  a 
most  thorough  student.  Other  difficulties  that  she 
felt  in  the  attitude  of  the  college  authorities  and 
of  the  public — as  the  unacknowledged  yet  obvious 
worship  of  numbers,  and  the  premium  put  on  the 
work  of  organizer  and  administrator  above  that 
of  the  constructor  and  scholar,  with  its  resulting 
tyranny  of  routine  over  life — baffled  her  own  in- 
tellectual aims.  The  whirl  of  trivial  activities  de- 
lighted in  by  the  versatile  American  girls,  and  per- 
mitted by  the  administration  to  invade  the  solitude 
needed  for  study,  was  peculiarly  alien  to  her  mental 
habit. 

With  amazingly  quick  insight  she  grasped  the 
idea  of  the  American  college  as  a  general  training 
field  for  life,  in  distinction  from  the  purely  schol- 
arly intent  of  the  German  university.  Recognizing 
that  the  college  was  a  healthy  and  timely  product 
of  national  growth,  she  never  even  tried  to  urge 
university  methods  on  her  students,  whose  need, 
she  found,  was  "humane  assimilation"  rather  than 
proficiency  in  a  few  separate  branches  of  knowledge. 
She  soon  became  convinced,  moreover,  that  the  de- 
cidedly practical  bent  of  the  American  and  his 
marked  soberness  of  mind  needed  to  be  counter- 
balanced by  aesthetic  culture;  that  the  training  of 
[271   ] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

his  powers  of  observation  and  of  his  logical  facul- 
ties was  less  essential  for  his  harmonious  gi-owth 
than  the  development  of  his  imaginative  and  emo- 
tional nature ;  that  the  cultivation  of  sympathetic 
imagination  would  protect  a  fatally  prosperous 
people  much  more  effectively  than  exact  scholar- 
ship against  the  threatening  bane  of  sterile  self- 
content. 

One  of  her  first  friendly  counsels  to  me  was  to 
stop  being  "thorough"  in  the  German  sense  of  the 
word.  "You  are  teaching  a  race,"  she  said,  "that 
likes  superstructures  much  better  than  founda- 
tions; so  beware  of  boring  your  students  by  an 
over-insistence  on  groundwork  or  detail  which,  con- 
stituted as  they  are,  they  cannot  but  resent  as  un- 
necessary pedantry.  The  important  thing  is  to  have 
the  student's  interest  and  sympathy.  Stimulate  the 
dormant  powers  of  fancy ;  let  your  students  hear, 
see,  and  feel  what  you  teach  them.  Their  intellects 
need  greater  warmth,  intenser  color, — expansion, 
not  concentration,  which  is  the  discipline  required 
for  the  dreamy  and  intellectually  luxuriant  German 
nature."  And  playfully  she  would  add : "  In  this  land 
of  prepared  and  predigested  foods  you  will  find 
very  few  students  willing  or  able  to  use  their  own 
teeth  and  stomachs  for  the  cracking,  chewing,  and 
[  272  ] 


THE  AMERICAN 

thorough  digestion  of  those  hard  nuts  of  knowledge 
wherewith  sound  scholarship  must  be  fed." 

Forced  or  "hothouse  scholarship"  she  merely  tol- 
erated and  never  encouraged.  "The  true  scholar," 
she  said,  "like  the  true  teacher,  is  born,  not  bred." 
"You  cannot  make  a  nightingale  out  of  a  chicken, 
even  if  you  try  ever  so  hard."  She  smiled  indul- 
gently when  people  called  her  a  scholar.  "I  am  only 
a  teacher,"  she  said,  "  which,  on  the  whole,  I  like 
better  than  being  a  scholar."  Her  own  text-books 
were  products  of  her  leisure  hours,  and  work  on 
them  was  never  allowed  to  interfere  with  her  prime 
interest  of  teaching.  One  of  the  minor  prejudices 
she  harbored  was  directed  against  those  instructors 
who  neglected  their  duty  to  their  classes  for  the 
sake  of  doing  some  indifferent  piece  of  "original 
research  work."  "  The  crying  need  of  this  country 
for  cultured  and  devoted  teachers  is  not  met  by 
the  breeding  of  an  army  of  indifferent  scholars.  Let 
us  learn  to  revere  the  teacher  in  us  and  others,  and 
let  us  give  ourselves  in  single-minded  devotion  to 
our  calling ;  there  is  none  higher."  To  this  calling 
she  gave  herself  with  a  vigorous  delight  that  in- 
spired all  teachers  who  came  in  contact  with  her 
with  a  new  sense  of  the  dignity  and  joy  of  their 
vocation. 

[  273  ] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

Fraulein  WenckebacVs  gentle  sympathy — to 
return  once  more  to  the  leading  motive  of  this 
chapter — showed  most  delightfully  in  her  conduct 
toward  her  students,  especially  the  dullards.  She 
did  not,  to  be  sure,  give  the  latter  much  chance 
for  expressing  themselves  in  class,  because  she  dis- 
liked to  spoil  the  even  tempo  of  a  recitation,  but 
she  never  conditioned  a  girl  of  slow  wits  or  kept 
her  out  of  advanced  work  so  long  as  there  was  true 
interest  and  serious  purpose  to  counterbalance  the 
dullness.  To  deal  out  moral  advice  or  to  fling  cen- 
sure at  a  student  after  a  failure,  she  considered  a 
highly  "ungentlemanly '^  procedure.  Toward  teach- 
ers, particularly  those  of  secondary  schools,  she  was 
kindness  and  helpfulness  itself,  and  never  was  she 
known  to  show  discourtesy  to  people  in  lower  sta- 
tions of  life. 

The  exquisite  tenderness  of  her  nature  found  its 
most  beautiful  expression  in  her  love  for  the  ani- 
mal world.  She  could  never  pass  a  kitten  without 
stroking  it  affectionately.  At  her  touch  the  cats 
invariably  began  to  purr,  and  they  followed  her 
just  as  the  dogs  did.  Squirrels  ate  out  of  her  hand, 
and  birds  did  not  seem  to  be  afraid  of  her.  Mice 
made  her  nervous,  yet  she  suffered  agonies  when- 
ever a  trap  had  to  be  put  in  her  room.  Her  friend 
[  274  ] 


THE  AMERICAN 

relates  how  one  day  she  saw  the  "Professorchen"  in 
her  desk  chair  and  a  field  mouse  in  the  chink  of  the 
door,  gazing  at  each  other  out  of  big  round  eyes. 
When  the  mouse  had  at  last  retreated  into  its  hole, 
the  professor  quietly  removed  the  trap  so  that  the 
tiny  fellow  creature  might  not  be  caught  in  it. 
Bats  she  feared. "  With  a  nervous  little  cry  for  help," 
her  friend  says,  "  she  once  waked  me  out  of  a  sound 
midnight  slumber,  gasping  out  to  me  that  there 
was  a  live  velvet  cap  on  her  skull.  When  I  had 
lighted  a  candle,  I  saw  her  sit  upright  in  bed  look- 
ing as  white  as  a  sheet.  But  when  I  jumped  out  of 
my  own  bed  to  chase  the  bat  away,  she  whispered, 
*  Please  don't  frighten  the  poor  creature.""'  There 
was  almost  a  Hindoo  reverence  in  her  for  all  organic 
life.  Mosquitoes  and  their  like  she  did  kill  with 
a  vim,  to  be  sure,  but  the  lives  of  beetles  or  cater- 
pillars, or  even  of  spiders,  she  never  willfully  de- 
stroyed. 

A  peculiar  indication  of  her  tenderness  was  seen 
in  her  treatment  of  babies,  who  smiled  and  babbled 
at  her,  although  she  always  touched  them  gingerly 
with  pointed  fingers  as  if  they  were  made  of  Venetian 
glass.  One  of  my  dearest  recollections  is  seeing  her 
act  as  godmother  to  Carla  Margarethe,  her  friend's 
infant  niece, — the  tall  clergyman  in  black  cassock 
[  275  ] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

and  white  frill  standing  in  front  of  the  baptismal 
table  on  a  small  platform  in  the  German  parlor, 
and  Fraulein  Wenckebach  before  him,  holding  the 
cooing  baby  as  reverently  as  if  it  had  been  the 
Christ  child  himself.  I  knew  then  what  is  meant  by 
the  saying  that  the  very  strong  only  can  be  very 
gentle. 


I 


[276] 


XXXVI 

THE  first  impression  that  Fraulein  Wencke- 
bach made  on  even  the  most  casual  observer 
was  undoubtedly  that  of  vigor,  of  a  wonderful  re- 
serve force.  A  stranger  needed  only  to  see  her  walk 
through  the  corridors  of  College  Hall  with  her  firm, 
quick  step  and  her  straight,  soldierlike  carriage,  to 
appreciate  the  appropriateness  of  the  pet  name  of 
"Little  Bismarck"  that  the  students  had  given  her. 
And  this  impression  was  heightened  when  one  heard 
her  talk.  Although  in  ordinary  conversation  her 
voice  was  very  gentle  and  melodious,  it  took  on 
a  "ringing  and  compelling"  quality  whenever  she 
used  it  for  significant  speech.  She  could  only  talk 
her  best — another  proof  of  her  vitality — before 
large  audiences.  Small  classes  distressed  her,  and 
she  never  lectured  to  them  without  exercising  her 
imagination  to  fill  the  class-room  with  a  large  body 
of  students.  But  it  was  in  her  enunciation  more 
than  in  her  voice  that  the  forceful  energy  of  her 
nature  expressed  itself,  especially  in  her  pronuncia- 
tion of  English.  She  never  would  learn  that  the 
English  p,  in  words  like  psychology  and  pneu- 
monia, was  not  an  explosive  as  it  is  in  German,  and 
she  energetically  insisted  on  awakening  the  dying 
[  277  ] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

final  ^'s  and  *'s  into  their  glad  old  Teuton  sound 
again.  It  was  partly  this  heroic  force  of  utterance, 
coupled  with  her  vividly  picturesque  way  of  putting 
things,  that  rendered  her  English  so  attractive  to 
many  people,  and  that  made  one  overlook  the  lack 
of  style  and  polish  which  in  a  measure  character- 
ized her  use  of  a  phenomenally  large  vocabulary. 

Students  and  Faculty  alike  were  aware  that 
Fraulein  Wenckebach  was  a  great  worker,  that  she 
carried  a  heavier  programme  of  academic  appoint- 
ments than  any  of  her  colleagues,  and  that  in  ad- 
dition she  managed  to  write  or  edit  at  least  one 
book  a  year.  Yet  they  met  her  at  all  entertain- 
ments the  college  provided,  and  saw  her  go  fre- 
quently to  Boston  to  attend  concerts,  or,  in  Ger- 
man opera  season,  to  rush  for  her  favorite  seat  in 
the  Olympus  of  the  Boston  Theatre.  The  bigger  the 
crowd  that  surrounded  her,  the  more  exhilarated 
she  felt,  and  the  great  shops  of  Jordan  &  Marsh  or 
R.  H.  White  at  Christmas  time,  or  the  Food  Fair 
on  special  "show  "days,  were  her  favorite  relaxations 
during  the  academic  year.  "If  you  will  spend  an 
hour  with  me  at  Wanamaker's  I  will  go  to  the 
picture  gallery  with  you,"  was  a  bargain  she  once 
struck  with  a  friend  of  more  aristocratic  instincts. 
Bad  weather  never  kept  her  from  going  an3rwhere. 
[  278  ] 


THE  AMERICAN 

The  stormiest  days  found  her  out  walking  or  skat- 
ing, while  heat,  on  the  other  hand,  easily  exhausted 
her.  This  may  partly  explain  her  extraordinary 
fondness  for  the  cool,  dark  woods  in  summer.  But 
by  instinct  she  loved  these,  and  it  was  good  to  be 
with  her  when  in  reverence  and  silence  she  walked 
under  the  green  vaults  of  the  German  forests.  At 
those  times  it  seemed  as  if  the  tree  cult  of  her 
Teuton  ancestors  rose  up  in  her  once  more.  The 
forest  was  the  only  place  where  she  ever  loitered, 
— not  to  pick  flowers,  for  these  she  hardly  noticed, 
but  to  listen  to  the  birds  and  to  fill  herself  at 
leisure  with  the  "divine  atmosphere"  of  that  giant 
creation.  Out  in  the  world,  she  "rushed,"  especially 
after  she  had  lived  in  America,  and  some  say  that 
in  this  respect  she  was  more  American  than  the 
Americans.  To  be  sure,  one  can  hardly  think  of  her 
as  anywhere  but  in  the  front  or  on  the  top  of 
things,  as  allzeit  voran,  I  myself  like  best  to  pic- 
ture her  in  the  first  row  of  a  crowded  hall,  or  on 
top  of  Mt.  Vesuvius  and  the  Great  Pyramid,  on  the 
Eiff*el  Tower  at  the  Paris  Exposition  and  the  Ferris 
Wheel  of  the  World's  Fair  at  Chicago.  Such  great 
fairs  offered  a  tremendous  attraction  to  her  imagi- 
nation, which  always  hungered  to  take  in  the  whole 
world  possessed  by  human  brain.  One  of  her  day- 
[  279  ] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

dreams  was  to  go  round  the  world,  but  she  knew 
that  she  would  never  save  money  enough  to  have 
that  dream  come  true,  and  so  she  went  to  the 
World's  Fairs  instead,  taking  now  her  student  bro- 
ther, now  her  fair  young  sister  Marie,  in  whose  joy 
she  found  her  own  doubled. 

To  keep  on  going  at  the  pace  that  her  temper- 
ament required  she  needed  plenty  of  food  and  a 
great  deal  of  sleep.  Her  hearty  appetite  was  one 
of  the  "foreign"  traits  at  which  the  college  world 
smiled  indulgently,  and  her  capacity  for  sleep  used 
to  be  the  envy  of  her  friends.  "I  shall  die  if  I 
can't  get  a  short  nap  right  now,"  she  once  shouted 
to  her  traveling  companion,  dropping  on  a  bench 
near  thundering  Niagara;  and  sitting  erect,  with 
the  waters  roaring  in  her  ears,  she  immediately 
dozed  off  into  a  gentle  slumber. 

If  she  had  not  been  such  a  cleanly  little  body  she 
would  hardly  have  thought  it  necessary  for  com- 
fort ever  to  take  off  her  clothes.  No  one  ever  saw 
her  in  wrapper  and  slippers,  for  the  simple  reason 
that  she  did  not  own  these  commodities,  —  "out- 
growths of  an  effeminate  civilization," — and  with 
the  exception  of  the  short  period  of  her  afternoon 
nap,  when  she  took  off  her  heavy  shoes,  she  was  in 
boots  and  spurs  all  day  long.  There  was  a  touch 
[  280  ] 


THE  AMERICAN 

of  the  heroic  in  her  way  of  dressing,  too,  for  the  pat- 
terns in  dress  goods,  the  buttons,  cravats,  and  hats 
she  chose,  would  have  been  suitable  for  a  six-footer 
rather  than  for  a  small  personage  like  hei*self. 

Her  mental  robustness  showed  especially  in  her 
marvelous  power  of  concentration,  which  made  it 
possible  for  her  to  work  on  board  a  crowded 
steamer  with  the  same  ease  as  in  her  private  study. 
It  also  appeared  in  her  remarkable  capacity  for 
quickly  sifting  and  systematizing  large  masses  of 
material  such  as  she  wielded  for  her  wonderfully 
comprehensive  work  in  pedagogy,  or  for  the  courses 
in  the  history  of  literature  which  she  treated  on 
a  broad  basis  oi  Kulturgeschichte  (history  of  civi- 
lization), as  her  excellent  Meisterwerke*  and  Li- 
teraturgeschichte*  sufficiently  show.  From  her  ever 
fresh  enthusiasm,  nourished  by  life  in  general 
and  by  great  personalities,  music,  and  "ideas"  in 
particular,  and  from  her  never  failing  power  of 
inspiration,  one  could  gather  how  keenly  alive  she 
was  in  her  emotional  and  spiritual  being. 

Occasionally,  to  be  sure,  a  strange  fit  of  listless- 
ness  would  overcome  her.  During  those  times  she 
was  content  to  sit  in  her  large  Morris  chair  and 
dream.  "What  is  it,  Professorchen,  that  you  are 

*  Text-book  published  by  Heath  and  Company. 
[  281  ] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

thinking  of?"  her  friend  asked  her  once  on  seeing 
Fraulein  Wenckebach's  face  lit  up  by  one  of  her 
"deliciously  retiring"  smiles.  "Oh,  something  great 
and  noble,"  the  answer  came.  And  questioned 
more  closely,  she  confessed  that  frequently  during 
these  sporadic  attacks  of  laziness,  she  held  inter- 
esting and  inspiring  converse  with  her  "heroes," 
— sometimes  with  Buddha,  or  Jesus  of  Nazareth, 
or  Plato,  but  more  often  with  Odin,  Balder,  or 
Brunhilde,  who  was  her  special  favorite  among  the 
great  types  of  women.  At  rare  intervals  she  could 
be  depressed,  too,  for  like  most  of  us  she  had  "  mis- 
eries" in  her  nature.  But  when  this  mood  came 
upon  her,  she  betook  herself  to  bed  to  fight  it  in 
silence;  "for,"  said  she,  "it  is  indecent  to  pour  your 
own  soul  mud  over  some  innocent  fellow  being." 
Her  physical  indispositions  she  treated  in  the  same 
heroic  way.  Once  she  slipped  on  the  frozen  lake 
and  badly  sprained  her  wrist.  While  she  was  still 
in  acute  pain  a  colleague  called  to  express  her 
S3nmpathy.  "But  was  n't  it  lucky,"  she  responded 
with  undaunted  spirit,  "that  I  had  my  skating 
before  I  fell?"  For  the  few  serious  diseases  that  had 
gripped  her  during  her  life  she  felt  genuine  awe 
and  respect,  but  she  had  a  shamefaced  way  of  con- 
fessing to  any  "  despicable  little  ailments"  such  as 
[  282  ] 


THE  AMERICAN 

headaches,  rheumatism,  and  the  like.  As  soon  as 
any  of  these  tried  to  get  hold  of  her  she  drove 
them  away  by  the  magic  of  wonderful  medicines 
which  she  had  seen  advertised.  New  inventions  in 
machinery  and  new  patent  medicines  had  been  her 
two  prime  interests  at  the  industrial  fairs  ever 
since  her  arrival  in  America.  In  New  York  she 
found  a  wonder-working  remedy  against  headaches, 
which  she  took  regularly  and  which  she  sent  to 
her  family  with  minute  descriptions;  then  again 
she  discovered  a  potion  that  "relieved  one  of  all 
rheumatic  pain  within  an  hour.""  The  little  doses 
of  medicine  that  sometimes  were  prescribed  for  her 
by  the  health  officers  of  the  college  she  regularly 
doubled  or  trebled,  never  minding  whether  they 
were  arsenic  or  sugar  pills,  aspirin  or  brandy, "  for," 
she  said,  "these  American  doctors  don't  know 
what  a  German  constitution  needs."  Somebody 
justly  remarked  that  Fraulein  Wenckebach  treated 
her  watch  more  carefully  than  her  body.  She  surely 
did  not  guard  her  splendid  constitution,  but  un- 
reasonably, yes,  recklessly,  undermined  it. 

The  first  serious  turn  in  her  health   occurred 
in  the  spring  of  1897,  while  she  was  lecturing  to 
a  Faust  class.  "Something  in  me,"  she  said,  "sud- 
denly gave  way."  Was  it  a  blood  vessel  in   the 
[  283  ] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

brain,  or  a  muscle  of  the  heart?  That  was  never 
ascertained  because  she  refused  to  consult  a  physi- 
cian. She  was  like  one  struck,  and  with  difficulty 
dragged  herself  through  the  remaining  months  of 
that  college  session.  During  the  next  year,  which 
was  her  "sabbatical,"  when  she  "loafed"  and  gave 
way  to  her  passion  for  wandering,  she  rallied  and 
to  all  appearance  regained  her  former  strength; 
but  to  her  friends  she  was  never  quite  the  same. 
Old  age  seemed  suddenly  to  have  laid  hold  of 
her  and  to  have  stayed  that  wonderful  vitality. 
This  was  doubly  sad  in  her  case  because  she  hated 
old  age  and  felt  a  bitter  gi*udge  against  all  the  lit- 
tle outward  signs  of  it,  especially  against  her  gray 
hair.  Cut  out  for  eternal  youth,  her  nature  so  far 
had  hardly  given  her  a  chance  at  laying  by  that 
fuel  of  resignation  which  comes  with  uncertain 
health  and  stands  us  in  good  stead  when  the  win- 
ter of  life  sets  in.  Like  Balder,  paling  at  the  appear- 
ance of  the  frost  giants,  she  shivered  at  the  thought 
of  becoming  what  with  tolerant  contempt  she  had 
often  commented  on  as  a  verloschende  Seek, — an 
anaemic  soul, — that  lacks  the  incentive  of  animal 
vigor  as  well  as  the  flames  of  enthusiasm  and  in- 
spiration. 

The  protective  instinct  of  love  that  surrounded 
[  284  ] 


THE  AMERICAN 

her  to  the  last  tried  in  many  ways  to  shield  her 
from  the  realization  of  her  failing  powers,  but  could 
not  completely  hide  from  her  the  humiliating  fact 
that  others  were  doing  her  work,  and  that  in  the 
management  of  the  department,  as  well  as  in  the 
planning  of  new  text-books  for  new  methods  of 
teaching,  the  "head"  had  become  a  "hand." 

In  the  fall  of  1902  it  became  evident  to  the  col- 
lege that  Fraulein  Wenckebach  was  ill.  She  herself 
never  complained,  but  incidentally  something  would 
betray  all, — a  sigh,  perhaps,  over  the  strange  weari- 
ness in  her  mind;  or,  after  a  wistful  look  at  the 
life  line  in  her  hand,  a  remark  about  the  shortness 
of  it,  and  about  the  accompanying  signs  of  "death 
in  a  foreign  country ; "  or,  most  pathetic  of  all,  an 
occasional  expression  of  gnawing  homesickness  for 
Germany.  Of  late  years  her  former  enthusiasm  for 
a  democratic  government  had  completely  given  way 
to  a  hearty  recognition  of  the  blessings  of  a  mon- 
archy such  as  Germany  represents,  and  one  of  her 
fondest  hopes  was  that  she  and  her  friend  might 
some  day  go  back  to  live  in  the  Fatherland,  "the 
land  of  order  and  soul,  of  culture  and  intellectual 
integrity." 

A  few  days  before  Fraulein  Wenckebach's  death, 
which  occurred  on  December  29, 1902  (three  weeks 
[  285  ] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

after  Mrs.  Palmer  had  died  in  Paris),  her  friend 
told  her  of  arrangements  to  take  her  home  to  her 
mother  and  sisters  as  soon  as  she  could  be  moved. 
The  light  that  kindled  in  her  blue  eyes  as  she 
pressed  her  companion''s  hand  in  gratitude  revealed 
more  than  any  words  could  have  done.  But  she 
soon  knew  that  the  journey  was  not  to  be,  although 
she  never  mentioned  death.  On  the  evening  of  the 
night  which  was  to  be  her  last,  she  called  the  friend 
to  her  bedside.  There  was  a  short  but  passionate 
clinging  to  existence  in  the  person  of  her  comrade; 
a  whispered  thanks  for  all  life  had  yielded;  a  deep 
sigh  of  resignation  to  the  bitter  task  of  dying;  then 
a  quiet  settling  down  to  fight  the  fight  manfully, — 
no  fears,  no  lament,  no  tears ;  courage  and  strength 
unto  death. 


[286] 


Her  brave,  laborious,  joy-illumined  days 
Made  up  a  rosary  that  saints  might  tell. 

The  child  heart  in  her,  loving  life,  gave  praise, 
Unto  the  Lord  of  Life.  And  all  is  well. 

For  should  she  speak  a  broken  speech  above, 
A  little  foreigner,  unused  to  wings. 

The  angels  wiU  but  stoop  with  swifter  love 
To  answer  all  her  eager  questionings. 

Oh,  loyal  to  the  Truth,  we  of  the  quest 

Salute  thee,  scholar  soul !  Our  reverence  lay 

Before  thy  steadfast  patience,  quenchless  zest. 
And  bid  thee  Godspeed  on  thy  lonely  way. 

KATHARINE  LEE  BATES 


^Ji^^a^  ^z^^eJad^ 


THE  general  and  spontaneous  grief  that  was 
felt  over  Fraulein  Wenckebach's  premature 
death  promptly  found  expression  in  countless  epis- 
tolary tributes  from  far  and  near,  in  commemora- 
tive meetings  and  addresses,  and  in  a  number  of 
dignified  and  lasting  memorials. 

Early  friendship  in  the  Fatherland  has  dedicated 
a  large  bronze  relief  to  her  memory.  It  is  placed  in 
Fraulein  Wenckebach's  dear  old  Hannover  Seminar, 
where  it  will  remind  future  generations  of  alumnae 
of  "the  German  woman  who  in  foreign  countries 
bore  witness  to  German  character  and  learning." 

The  Faculty  of  Wellesley  have  expressed  their 
love  and  high  esteem  for  their  colleague  by  the  gift 
of  a  bronze  tablet — now  in  the  college  library — 
bearing  the  significant  motto  of  Allzeit  voran 
(Always  in  the  front). 

The  Wellesley  Alumnae  have  honored  the  mem- 
ory of  the  true  scholar  by  presenting  to  the  col- 
lege a  Carla  Wenckebach  Fund,  whose  income  is  to 
be  used  for  the  purchase  of  books  and  music  for 
the  Department  of  German. 

On  the  spot  where  their  revered  professor  lies 
buried, — a  "lonely  height"  in  the  secluded  ceme- 
tery of  the  town  of  Wellesley, — loving  students 
[  289  ] 


CARLA  WENCKEBACH 

have  erected  a  worthy  monument.  The  simple  un- 
polished stone  of  exquisite  grain,  symbol  of  her 
character,  bears  the  inscription : 

"  Wer  immer  strehend  sich  bemiiht 
Den  kbnnen  wir  erlosen." 

"(^Whoe'er  aspires  unrveariedly 
Is  not  beyond  redeeming.)'*     • 

It  is  her  favorite  motto  from  Faust,  and  best  ex- 
presses her  own  "quenchless  zest"  for  deeper  know- 
ledge and  higher  development. 

And  now,  at  last,  closest  friendship  in  America, 
the  home  of  her  choice,  offers  its  own  memorial, — 
the  story  of  her  life  and  character.  May  this  story 
revivify  her  memory  to  those  who  knew  her.  May 
it  also  shed  some  faint  afterglow  of  that  "highest 
bliss"  that  was  throbbing  in  her  and  emanated 
from  her  as  long  as  life  was  hers. 
Love  asks  no  more. 


YB  05634 


256352 


:1      i;H 

ill! 


